The Iron Butterfly
by Wyndhamfan
Summary: When Tony DiNozzo stumbles upon a murder at a Naval office, he is shot and left for dead. Gibbs soon discover that Tony has gotten involved in something bigger than a murder case.
1. Default Chapter

**The Iron Butterfly**

**By Wyndhamfan )  
**

**Summary: When Tony DiNozzo stumbles upon a murder, he is shot and left for dead by the perpetrators.**

"Sure, boss. I'll do it. I'll drive to some godforsaken outpost to retrieve those files. Sure. Why not? I mean, those files probably wouldn't prove anything, but I'll do it anyway!" Special Agent Tony DiNozzo grumbled under his breath as he got out of his car. For added effect, he slammed the door shut.

Tony sighed, and slipped on his sunglasses as he observed the dismal-looking two-storey building. Located in the most deserted area of town, the building that had the honor of housing every single receipt that passed the Navy's hands had obviously seen better days. The (what he assumed to be) once-white paint of its walls was now a dusky gray, and the paint on the door was peeling.

Sighing, he promised that Kate would pay for telling Gibbs that he'd always wanted to visit Milwaukee Street.

"Minnesota Street, Kate. Minnesota. Where the jazz clubs are," he grumbled. Though he suspected Kate _already_ knew that.

* * *

"Hello?" he called out as he opened the door. 

Files. Walls and walls of files. Gibbs wasn't kidding when he said that the Navy never threw away paperwork. And from among these mass of files, he was supposed to find a receipt that would prove … what again? He couldn't wrap his mind around it right now because he was overwhelmed by the amazing amount of work before him.

"Oh yeah, she's going to pay," Tony muttered, already thinking about ways Kate would suffer.

He heard some scuffling sounds from behind the tall shelf of graying files and headed towards it.

"Hey? Service, please?" he called out.

The man who appeared suddenly shocked the bejeezus out of him by scooting from out of nowhere before him.

"Whoa!" he called out, holding up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm just here for the files."

The man – strangely out of uniform – blinked then smiled nervously. "Files? Er … well. The usual guy's not in," he said and then ran a hand through his sandy hair.

Oh. _Wonderful._His day just got worst.

"And who are you? Is this casual Friday?" A pause, then, "Does the navy have casual Fridays?"

"Er … uh … I'm not a soldier," the man stood up straighter.

"Uh-huh. And what is a civilian doing in a naval office?"

"Well. Uh…"

Tony's "something's going on" antenna pricked up and he tried to get behind the guy. But, as he suspected, the man blocked his way. Tony frowned. Something was up. And it wasn't good. At least, judging by the man's nervous twitching.

He instinctively reached for his gun-

"Something the matter here, Ed?" a voice called out.

The flustered man – presumably Ed – stepped back and Tony saw a man in uniform approach him.

"Gunny Sergeant…" Tony began, eyeing the man's uniform.

"Gunny Sgt Harold Tims," Tims grabbed his hand. "Why don't I explain things a little here, huh?"

_

* * *

_

_Wonderful_, Tony thought as he opened the car door. The guy that manned this file museum was on sick leave. His temporary replacement was new at this. So new that he didn't know that they were still on a paper system. And the civilian was a "friend" visiting. _That_ was totally none of his business, thank you very much.

Gibbs. Now, he could just picture his expression when he got back and told him what happened. And then he pictured Gibbs heading for that tenth cup of coffee.

Sighing, Tony slammed the car door shut again. Yes, Gibbs would want him to go through the files with or without that clerk.

Besides, he'd probably make him go back anyway.

"Looks like it's just me and the files today," he sighed. "You're going to pay, Kate. You're going to pay."

He stepped into the office, let out a loud sigh and walked towards the small glassed-off clerk's office at the end of the long corridor of files. No sign of Ed and Ensign Tim.

He was about to announce his presence again when he saw the blood.

There were only three dots of blood on the glass surface, but it was enough to set his danger antenna to high alert. He rounded the corner and entered the tiny cubicle, and then he saw it. The body of a man in a uniform. With a bullet in his forehead. The glassy green eyes had stared in shock as his life ended. He grabbed his gun -

- and heard a loud sound.

Stunned, he turned around and saw Tims pointing a gun at him. A smoking gun.

It was then that he realised that his shoulder and back hurt. A lot.

He lost control of his legs suddenly. Felt them go numb, buckle and then he was on his knees. He touched his shoulder, and his hand came away bloody. Then the world became fuzzy, and he slid sideways into darkness, wondering if Gibbs would be mad at him for being late again.

* * *

When he woke up – he didn't know when – the world was shaking. Each jolt sent a bolt of fire through his body and he groaned. The sound that escaped his lips was shockingly weak; it shook him enough to force himself awake. 

It was dark. Musty. He lifted his head just an inch and nearly hit his head on something. A roof of some kind … he was in a cramped space… the trunk of a car.

Tony groaned.

_Wonderful.__ Gibbs would love this. I've been kidnapped_, he thought morosely. _Again._

Another harsh jolt sent a wave of nausea through him, and it took him all his strength not to throw up. Groaning, he lay down limply, helplessly tiding out the waves of pain that accompanied each harsh jolt. Whatever road they were traveling on, it wasn't smooth. It reminded him of the "shortcuts" Gibbs was so fond of taking.

_They're taking me someplace where the roads are barely serviceable …_Tony frowned. He knew what that meant. Tims and Ed probably didn't want anyone finding him soon, if ever. And judging from Tims' actions, they weren't taking him to a retreat in the woods.

_They're going to kill me. _

Grimly, he wriggled his hands, tying to find a way to free himself from the bonds. His hands had been tied behind his back, hurting his shoulder even more. Each wriggle worsened the pain, and Tony was about to give up the struggle when he felt the bonds coming loose. Whoever tied him up didn't do a good job.

Groaning, he wriggled his hands free and then slowly brought a hand to his injured shoulder. He was still bleeding, judging from the wetness that he felt beneath his fingers. And the growing feeling of light-headedness, numbness and cold meant that he was rapidly going into shock.

_Must not give in to it.__ Becoming unconscious now would be bad … very bad._

He felt the hood of the trunk, hoping that there was some kind of weakness he could use to force his way out of the trunk. While moving around, his elbow brushed against something hard in his jacket. Frowning, he reached into the inner pocket and … eyes widening, he took out what appeared to be his cell phone.

"You've gotta be kidding me," he whispered. Are they that stupid? To not search him and allow him to keep his cell phone?

Rather than question his amazing stroke of luck, Tony went to work, dialing Gibbs' number. The numbers before him wavered in and out of focus, and it took several tries before he got it right. He berated himself for not programming Gibbs' number on a speed dial. (He wasn't, after all, that keen on getting Gibbs on his cell phone quick.)

It started ringing.

Then the car stopped sharply.

He nearly lost hold of the cell, but he got it in time before it skittered out of sight in the dark confines of the trunk.

He heard footsteps coming towards him. Grunting in pain, DiNozzo shoved the cell into the inner pocket of his jacket, praying that they wouldn't search him again.

The hood of the trunk opened, and he saw Ed and Tims peering down at him. The light blinded him for a while, and DiNozzo blinked furiously before the glare went away.

"Special Agent DiNozzo. I see that you're awake," Tims said. A pale eyebrow arched upwards. "You're going to wish you hadn't wriggled out of those bonds, DiNozzo."

"Anything to make your life more difficult, Tims," he said, giving the man his best smile. He grunted in pain when Tims hauled him out of the trunk.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing from this great show, NCIS. I would like to own Tony, but life didn't work out that way for me. So, yes, I don't own anything and this fanfic is for non-profit purposes. Merci!

Notes: Thank you for your wonderful reviews! Kept me going and made me want to post this chapter faster! ;) Have a good read and tell me what you think!

**Chapter Two**

By Wyndhamfan -

Special Agent Jethro Gibbs was having one of his three-cups-of-coffee-during-breakfast days, and he was making sure that everybody paid for it.

"McGee!" he yelled. "Where are the files I've been asking for?"

McGee peered from behind his computer and visibly swallowed. "Uh, you just asked me that five minutes ago. The files are still downloading – normally, it would be faster than this, but the server's slow today because the technicians from Quantico is collaborating with our–"

Gibbs just took one succinct step towards McGee's terminal before the agent shot out from his chair and mumbled: "Right, I am getting the files, Boss!" And he scooted as fast as he could from his desk to the safe confines of Abby's lab.

Special Agent Kate Todd merely raised an eyebrow, her eyes following McGee's hurried steps. Then she chuckled beneath her breath.

"Something funny, Agent Todd?" Gibbs growled, turning his head ever so slowly towards her direction.

When Gibbs had that _tone, _saying "yes" to the question would be suicidal. _That's Tony's department_, she thought.

"No, but in case you're about to ask me where Tony was for the fifth time, the answer is still 'I don't know'."

"If he's chasing after a skirt, _nothing _will save him this time," Gibbs muttered as he marched back to his desk.

Kate sighed. Tony was just asking for it, wasn't he? Almost an hour late and counting – he should've been back by now, with the files Gibbs wanted. It didn't help that Gibbs was having a hunch that itched like crazy, and that the only way to prove the hunch right was to access the documents that Tony was supposed to get.

The investigation into the murder of Petty Officer Ken Logan revealed that he had ties to a local militia bent on "overthrowing the corrupt US regime". Gibbs had a gut feeling that Logan wasn't the only "imbedded" militia member in the military. The possibility of traitors in the ranks was something Gibbs didn't want to sit on. Too bad Tony didn't feel the same way.

"He hasn't called?" Gibbs asked, his voice dripping with annoyance.

"Nope."

Gibbs was about to yell at Kate to get Tony when his cell phone rang. The caller: DiNozzo. Cursing under his breath, Gibbs fiddled with the thing until he pressed right button. _Damn machines_, he thought.

"DiNozzo! You're late!" he barked into the receiver.

Instead of an answer, he heard heavy breathing, and then –

_"Special Agent DiNozzo. I see that you're awake."_

--------------------------------------------

Tims and with more than a little help from Ed, shoved him none too gently to the floor of the dilapidated farmhouse. The fall jarred his shoulder, and Tony cried out. It took him a moment to control the pain, but he lifted defiant eyes to stare at his captors.

"Do you really believe that they won't find me here … in this farmhouse?" he gasped as the pain roared anew. His vision swam and his stomach roiled, but damn if he was going to give them the pleasure of even hearing another whimper from him.

Tims grabbed him by the collar and yanked him forward, and another strangled cry burst out from his lips before he could stop it.

"Shut up!" Tims roared.

"Why did you kill the clerk?" Tony hissed through his pain. "He couldn't find a file fast enough?"

Tims yanked him forward and then pushed him back hard. Tony this time managed to stifle his cry of pain as he landed on his injured shoulder again. His vision turned red, and he felt darkness edging in.

--------------------------------------------

Gibbs' hold tightened on the cell phone.

"Gibbs?" It was Kate. She had caught his grim look and knew that trouble was on the other line. She only saw this look once – the night when Tony went missing after being drugged and then kidnapped by the serial killer that killed those marines.

Gibbs blocked the receiver and hissed at Kate: "Tell Abby to trace Tony's call. Now!"

Kate's eyes widened, but understanding the urgency of the situation, she merely nodded and picked up the phone to call Abby's extension.

--------------------------------------------

"Stop it, damn it!" It was Ed.

Tony watched through his blurred vision as Tim whirled around and pointed the gun at Ed.

"You. Shut up. Before I put this between your eyes. I've about had enough of your damn whimpering."

"What are you going to do to him?" Ed demanded. He was sweating heavily, eyes bulging out with fear.

"What do you think?"

"I didn't sign up for this!"

"No, you are here for the Iron Butterfly. Just shut up, and let me do this!"

"Do what? No, no – he's NCIS, god damn it!"

Tony willed his wounded body to move, and move through the pain it did. He let out a roar and threw himself at Tims, toppling then both to the floor. He grunted and gritted his teeth against the pain as he wrestled for the gun.

"Ed! Get him off me! Now!"

--------------------------------------------

_"I said **now**, Ed!" _Gibb's expression tightened at the sounds of struggle that he heard over the speakers. The noise, amplified as such by Abby's ever-reliable sound speakers cast a pall over Kate, McGee and Gibbs, who were all gathered around Abby as she worked furiously on her computer.

"Tracking – you said farmhouse, right?" Abby asked.

Gibbs only nodded grimly.

Without a word, McGee suddenly appeared beside Abby, punching in command lines so fast that the data on the screen went by in lightning speed.

_--------------------------------------------_

Ed grabbed Tony's hands with his sweaty ones and tried to disentangle his fingers from the gun. Tims, meanwhile, was doing his best to kick him off him.

As his fingers came off the gun one by one, Tony knew that he was not going to win this battle. He had bled out too much – far too weak from blood loss to win against one, let alone two guys. But he could leave Gibbs something. Something –

With as much strength as possible, he dug his fingers into Ed's cheek and scoured as much skin as he could from his cheek.

--------------------------------------------

_"Augh! He scratched me!"_

"Good work, DiNozzo," Gibbs whispered. Tony had given them a trail – DNA.

Gibbs heard the door to the lab open, and Ducky's familiar voice muttering about something he couldn't bother to decipher right now.

Suddenly, Tony cried out. The scream echoed around the lab, instantly cutting off Ducky's monologue.

"Who the hell is-? Is that Tony …?" Ducky trailed off when Gibbs gave him a curt nod.

Kate unconsciously gripped the chair in front of her. Ducky, meanwhile, had fallen unnaturally silent, staring at the incomprehensible screen before him. Maps flashed by lightning speed while both McGee and Abby worked feverishly, yelling technobable at each other.

"I almost got it!" she yelled suddenly. Kate wouldn't know – all she saw were maps scrolling feverishly before her eyes.

--------------------------------------------

The gun was out of his hands. Tony could only brace himself against the wall shakily as he held a bloody hand to his shoulder wound. He stared at the barrel of the gun Tims had pointed at him defiantly. Then his act of bravery failed when the world tilted madly around him. He could barely make out their faces now. Trying to stave off nausea, Tony closed his eyes.

"I didn't take you for the scratching type, Special Agent DiNozzo. You fight like a girl," he sneered

DiNozzo forced his eyes open and whispered, "You're going to pay for that … statement."

"You first, DiNozzo." Tims cocked his gun.

He closed his eyes, and willed himself not to scream. _Just let it be fast._

"No!" Ed suddenly cried out. Tony gasped in surprise when he saw Ed lunge towards Tims and grapple for the gun.

"Move, DiNozzo, move," he whispered. And he willed his legs to walk … then stumbled forward. The walls wavered around him crazily and he wasn't even sure if he was moving away from his captors or towards them. Desperately, he used the wall to support himself, leaving a wide smear on the wall as he lurched away.

"Don't move, DiNozzo!"

He stumbled to a halt. Wearily, he turned around to face Tims, knowing what will happen next. If he was to die, it's not by running away. Lifting his chin defiantly, he faced Tims, who was nothing more than a blurry shape in front of him now.

He heard a loud sound, and then his head exploded in pain, and he fell. It was fortunate that he could not feel his head striking the wall hard as he went down.

--------------------------------------------

Gibbs flinched when he heard the sound of gunfire.

"DiNozzo," he whispered. "DiNozzo?"

Nothing.

Numbly, he stared at the cell phone.

"I got it!" Abby yelled, breaking the eerie silence. But her expression was something Kate didn't think she could ever see on the normally-sunny labtech's face. Her eyes were wide with shock, her lips in a taut line.

"Give it to me, Abby," Gibbs demanded grimly.

With a quick set of commands, Abs printed a copy of the map.

"It's in the middle of nowhere. Farmhouses abandoned since the 1930s. But Tony's signal comes from just this one farmhouse located on this section of the map–" she showed Gibbs the area – "It's about an hour from here," she said, and then gave Ducky a worried look. The look meant one thing: _Can he make it that long?_

Instead of answering her silent question, Ducky said: "I'll come along, Jethro. We're going to need a helicopter."

"McGee, Kate!" Gibbs barked as he headed out. The two agents didn't need to be told twice. They were all out of there in a few seconds, leaving Abby staring at their backs.

"Bring him back safe, 'k?" Abby asked softly to no one as she sank into her chair numbly.


	3. Chapter 3

Notes: Thank you, guys, for your wonderful reviews! Sorry it took me a bit while to get this chapter out. Hope it's good. ;

**The Iron Butterfly**

**Chapter Three**

"You shot him in the head," Ed's voice was strangely emotionless. He got up slowly from the floor. Tims had hit him in the head with the butt of the gun, knocking him out for a moment.

Tims glared at the man in annoyance and bent down over the body. DiNozzo was lying on his side against the wall, blood flowing copiously from the head wound at his temple. He smiled in satisfaction.

"Shot in the head. Not going to survive that," he muttered. Tims felt for a pulse at Tony's neck, and let out a short laugh.

"God damn! He's still alive! This sonofabitch is one stubborn nut. I'd just finish you off with another one in the head, DiNozzo, nice and clean," he said to the unconscious man. Suddenly, he noticed a suspicious-looking bump on DiNozzo's jacket. He searched through the jacket and felt a hard object in the inner pocket.

"What the hell?" he muttered. He took out the object and his eyes widened. "_Shit_!" he glared at Ed in accusation.

Ed merely stared at Tims, his face expressionless.

"It's his cell phone! Didn't I tell you to search him?!" he yelled. His eyes widened some more when he saw that the cell phone was connected to a call. Someone called Gibbs. And he's still listening. Tims roared in anger and threw the down cell with all his strength. It shattered.

"You stupid shit!" he turned towards Ed and found –

– Ed pointing a gun at him.

"No, you're the idiot, Tims," Ed hissed. "I mean, you got your fingerprints all over DiNozzo. Who's the stupid ass now?"

"Where did you get that gun?" Tims' eyes narrowed. He took a step forward.

"Uh-uh. You're not getting anywhere near me, y'hear?"

"You can't fire that thing at me; you're too much of a weasel. Too yellow," Tims mocked.

"Don't tempt me," he muttered, his eyes narrowing.

--------------------------------------------

It wasn't hard to get the chopper. What's hard was the time it took to get into it, and to fly off. Gibbs had sent McGee off to get their equipment and follow the MedeVac chopper.

What's harder was listening to Tims executing DiNozzo.

The words that Gibbs heard before Tims destroyed the cell phone made him boil so much with helpless rage that all he could do was nearly crush the cell phone in his white-knuckled grip.

_I'd just finish you off with another one in the head, DiNozzo, nice and clean._

But the phone was destroyed before Gibbs could find out for sure if Tims made his threat become reality.

"You lay one more hand on DiNozzo, Gunny, and you're going to regret it ten thousand times," he hissed under his breath, his eyes flashing fire.

Kate could only stare dismally at Gibbs.

When they finally landed, they couldn't get out of the chopper fast enough.

The dilapidated farmhouse, a relic of the early 20th century, stood alone in an overgrown area that might've been a large vegetable garden once upon a time. When they got to the doorstep of the building, Gibbs motioned Ducky aside (silently warning him to stay out of this) and then gave Kate a curt nod which she returned promptly. They placed themselves on separate sides of the door.

_One, two … three, _Gibbs silently counted. With a grunt, he kicked the door open and pointed his gun. The darkness jarred him at first, but his eyes quickly adjusted. "NCIS!" he yelled.

Silence.

He could sense Kate behind him, watching his back.

"Stay behind, Ducky!" he yelled. He could hear slow retreating footsteps in response.

"NCIS!" he yelled again.

Silence.

He motioned for Kate to explore the corridor on the left. The house was a small abode made of brick and wood; most of the paint from the walls had long been eaten away except for startling patches of dirty white here and there.

Then his eye caught something on the floor. Drops of blood. Far too many of them.

"Tony," he muttered.

"Gibbs!" It was Kate. Her voice was shrill and desperate; Gibbs ran towards the direction of her voice – somewhere ahead in the narrow corridor.

He knew before seeing her bent over Tony that she had found him. What he was not prepared for was the amount of blood that stained the walls and floor. Tony lay on his side. His white shirt, what that was not hidden by his jacket, was nearly all red with blood. He was frighteningly pale; the streaks of blood that ran down the side of his face stood out garishly on his white skin. For a moment, Gibbs froze, staring at Tony's bloody head.

A head wound. He was shot in the head. The man had executed Tony. Just like that.

He lowered his gun, and felt his arms go suddenly numb. Kate met his eyes; hers was as bleak as his.

"Let me see." It was Ducky, and he felt the ME brush past him to kneel beside Tony. He didn't have the energy to berate Ducky for disobeying his orders to stay out.

"Oh God, Tony," Ducky sighed as he kneeled by the fallen agent's side. He motioned Kate aside. She moved away, jerkily, never taking her eyes off Tony as she backed away.

Ducky Mallard has seen far too many colleagues fall in the line of duty. But strangely never did he think that Tony would be one of them. Although the young agent had given the rest the impression that he was an irreverent and less than capable agent, Ducky – and Gibbs – knew better. Anyone that worked with Gibbs had to be the best, and Ducky knew in his heart that Tony was good at what he did, and that his flippant front was just a play to fool his enemies into underestimating him.

But the world was a senseless place. Not even heroes are spared senseless deaths.

He placed his fingers on Tony's neck, praying that he'd find a pulse. The head wound – which upon cursory examination seemed like a bullet wound – seemed to indicate that it was hopeless but …

… there it was, a faint beat. Another. Another … faint, but there. He leaned forward, placing his ear as close as possible to DiNozzo's lips. As Ducky tuned everything else out – the sound of the wind whistling past the many holes in the abandoned house, Gibbs and Kates' strained breathing … he could hear the faint, faint, shallow breaths that Tony was taking.

"He's alive," he said, and his many years of medical experience took over and he began to examine Tony's injuries. He heard Kate exhale in surprise behind him, but Gibbs remained ominously silent.

"The MedeVac chopper is coming," Kate said to nobody in particular. And it was as if her words were prophetic – they suddenly heard the faint sound of whirring blades above them.

"I'll go check," Kate said needlessly. Ducky heard, rather than saw, Kate run out. Gibbs, he knew, was still behind him, silently watching. Probably berating himself for Tony's condition.

_My God, he's far too pale_, Ducky thought to himself. And no wonder too. Massive blood loss from two wounds – one to the shoulder, another to the temple. With shaking hands, he parted DiNozzo's hair to get a better look at the wound.

"Ducky?" Gibbs spoke for the first time. His voice was uncharacteristically unsteady.

He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He turned and gave Gibbs a very shaky smile. "Young Anthony is lucky. The bullet merely grazed his temple."

He returned his gaze to Tony. "But he's not out of the woods yet. His shoulder wound – I believe it nicked an artery." Ducky didn't want to share his suspicion that Tony had also suffered a serious concussion – upon closer inspection (and judging from the blood smears on the wall) Ducky realized that Tony's skull must have had hit the wall hard when he was shot. Then there was the hypovolemic shock, which was his main concern.

He gently pushed Tony's jacket aside.

"Let me take a look at you, Tony," he whispered. Seeing his wound, he quickly applied pressure to it. The effect was immediate – Tony groaned and shivered, his eyes blinking.

"Tony? Tony, can you hear me?" Gibbs was suddenly beside him on the floor.

Tony's eyes flickered open, but from how glazed they looked, Ducky didn't think Gibbs' query registered.

"Tony, help's coming," Gibbs murmured. His eyes lowered to the wound on Tony's shoulder, which was still bleeding, and then to the pool of blood below Tony's body. He was losing far too much blood.

The sound of the chopper was close now – they have just landed outside, from the sounds of it.

"They're here!" came McGee's voice suddenly. Gibbs turned to see both McGee and Kate running towards them. While Kate quickly knelt beside Gibbs by Tony's side, McGee skidded to a halt when he saw the scene before him.

"Shit," he swore uncharacteristically when he saw DiNozzo. "Th-They're here," he muttered again, staring at DiNozzo.

Tony's eyes began to close.

"Hey, stay with me here," Gibbs said, placing a hand on Tony's cheek. He didn't dare do anything else – the head wound, graze wound or not, didn't need more aggravation.

Tony's unfocused eyes shifted to meet Gibbs'.

"You hang in there. _Stay_ awake." Gibbs said firmly, his eyes boring into DiNozzo's. If he could will DiNozzo to stay conscious with the force of his gaze, he would do it.

It didn't work. Tony's eyes began to roll back into his head.

"Tony!" he called.

It was no good. Gibbs gave Ducky a quick look and the ME nodded in return, telling him silently that he's still alive. Meanwhile, Tony had gone limp and still.

They heard footsteps. _Paramedics_, thought Gibbs distractedly.

"This way!" he heard Kate say.

Gibbs and Kate backed away as the medical team worked on Tony. They watched numbly as the paramedics secured Tony quickly and expertly on a stretcher, whispering medical jargon and abbreviations to each other urgently.

"I'll go with them," Ducky murmured, giving the parademics, who were already leaving, a quick glance. "There's only room for one. I'll see you at the hospital," he said shortly, his usual verbosity missing. Without waiting for a reply, Ducky ran out with the medics, leaving Gibbs, McGee and Kate staring at him helplessly.


	4. Chapter 4

Hello everyone! Yes, a little late here thanks to the Christmas holidays. And then there's the tsunami ... long story, that one. But here it is! Disclaimers in Chapter 2. Not-so-nice language in this one. Also, I'm no expert in forensics, so do forgive me if I do get anything wrong.

The Iron Butterfly

By Wyndhamfan

**Chapter 4**

Gibbs was the first to move. He stared at the blood spatter on the dirty-white walls and then at the disturbed pool of blood that was DiNozzo's.

"Kate. Take pictures. McGee. You're with me," he said, moving purposely towards the blood-splattered walls.

When he didn't get replies, he turned to face the two younger agents with a frown.

They both stood rooted to their spots; both still looked shell shocked and confused, and Gibbs couldn't blame them. But they couldn't afford the delay. For Tony's sake, they're going to do this well, and they're going to do it now.

"Sometime today?" he asked in irritation.

McGee nodded and then stammered: "The equipment is outside. I, uh, will go and get it."

Kate just watched him go before turning to Gibbs. "Gibbs-" she began.

"Not now, Kate. We don't have the time to _reminisce_. We're going to do our jobs," he said curtly. He walked carefully over the pool of blood and then studied the blood spatter.

Kate pursed her lips, trying to keep her anger buried. But she failed. _Bastard, _she cursed him silently.

"We should be on the road, following the tire tracks we saw outside – we could still get the sonofabitch that did this!" Kate snapped.

"_They_ are long gone, Kate. We took almost half an hour to get here. They shot Tony half an hour ago. You do the math," he muttered.

"So what? You're going to let them get away?"

He turned towards her and skewered her with a glare. "If you think that, Agent Todd, you haven't been working with me long enough," he growled, his voice low and dangerous.

She looked away, trying to regain her composure. McGee was suddenly by her side. He quietly handed her a camera and with a small nod, he left her side to be with Gibbs.

Gibbs spoke up quietly as she got her camera ready: "I told McGee to send for reinforcements to block off all access points to this area before we left."

Without another word, he walked towards the blood-splattered wall.

Kate sighed and placed a hand on her forehead, cursing herself for her oversight. She should've known – Gibbs was the "no stone unturned" man after all.

With shaky hands, she aimed, focused and snapped a photo of the blood smears on the wall.

--------------------------------------------

"He got up. Went towards the wall. Supported himself with it for a while," Gibbs muttered as he followed the blood trail, McGee dutifully behind him. He stopped at the blood spatter on the wall.

"Bullet grazed him on the right temple. And judging from the smear downwards, his head hit the wall … and he slid down." This time Gibbs couldn't keep the fury from his voice. Gibbs' face didn't register any emotion, but McGee discreetly studied Gibbs trembling hands, now curled into fists.

"Finally landed on his side nearly against the wall," Gibbs said as he lowered himself, following the blood smear until he crouched beside the pool of blood. After a while, he said quietly: "McGee. Do you know what you're supposed to do?"

Shocked out of his morbid trance, McGee stammered: "Uh … boss?"

Gibbs gave him a killer look.

"The bullet, McGee," came Kate's voice from behind. "Find the bullet."

McGee nodded spasmodically. "R-right. Figure out the trajectory," swallowing, McGee went to work. Gibbs, meanwhile, had risen to his feet and was now studying the pool of blood.

"McGee's not going to learn anything if you answer his questions for him."

"Like you said, we are short on time," Kate shot back, her eyes steely.

Gibbs only regarded her coolly for a while before returning his gaze to the pool of blood.

"He didn't receive his shoulder wound here."

Kate walked to his side then hunkered down beside the pool of blood, staring at it grimly. "This is a lot of blood, Gibbs."

"The pool of blood came mostly from the area around his head. Head wounds bleed a lot. No other pools of blood around the place. And Ducky said that he might've nicked an artery. He was shot elsewhere, Kate. My guess is-"

"The naval office at Milwaukee Street," she muttered and then quickly got on her phone.

Gibbs studied his reflection on the nearly-black surface of the bloody pool.

"I'm going to get you both. That's a promise," he growled beneath his breath.

--------------------------------------------

She took pictures of the tire tracks, and the footprints on the muddy ground next. After doing that, Kate sighed.

"I can't do this," she muttered, running a hand through her hair. She blinked the tears from her eyes furiously. "Damn it, Tony," she whispered, looking away from her work. She wasn't sure what or who she was mad at – whether it be Tony, Gibbs, the two men who took him … all she felt was helpless rage and no one to vent it on.

She couldn't get the picture of Tony's pale and bloody face out of her mind, or the pools of blood – _his_ blood – on the floor. She was not Gibbs. She couldn't just shut off and work and not think about her partner dying somewhere.

Sighing, she wiped off the tears and quickly collected herself. Kate followed the footprints on the mud until she came upon a boot.

"A boot?" she remarked, her eyes widening. "Gibbs!" she yelled.


	5. Chapter 5

Note: Thanks for the reviews, everyone! Thanks, most of all for reading and for being patient with me. I know you guys couldn't wait for the next instalment, so I uploaded this today. Hope you like it!

**The Iron Butterfly**

**By Wyndhamfan**

**Chapter Five**

Ducky sighed, taking off his fishing hat tiredly and staring at it.

"To think that we were supposed to be leaving for a fishing excursion just a few hours ago," he told the hat. He sighed again and placed the hat back on his head.

"Remarkable. I'm now talking to hats," he said sardonically.

It has been four hours since Tony was brought into surgery, and about an hour since he was wheeled into recovery and Ducky given the news. Now, Tony lay pale and still in an ICU room, hooked up to a dozen machines, one of them a ventilator. Ducky studied the young agent, noting how unsettling it was to see Tony so expressionless, his face devoid of his usual smile and smirk. Even more disturbing was how his chest rose and fell artificially as the ventilator did its work.

"You're going to be just fine, Anthony. They have stopped the bleeding. No significant muscle or nerve damage – however, the bullet did nick an artery. But that was quickly dealt with. You'd be pleased to know that your shoulder will heal and with a little physiotherapy, it'll be as good as new. Although the bullet did come close to hitting the scapula …" Ducky paused in his monologue, wondering if Tony would like to hear all the details. Most probably not. He took another track.

"There are nurses and doctors here that will take care of you around the clock, and may I mention that some of the nurses are rather fetching? It's something you can look forward to when you wake up, isn't it?" He gave the man a small smile. The ventilator puffed and hissed.

He reached out and gripped Tony's lax hand gently, hoping that touch could somehow get through the haze of his unconsciousness. He ended up spending a long time just looking at Tony, studying the rise and fall of his chest. Silence fell until all he heard was the soft hiss of the ventilator and the beeping of the EKG.

"You'll be _fine_, Tony," he said again – more to himself rather than Tony.

"Dr Mallard?" a voice called out.

It was a nurse, and she looked faintly perplexed. She walked to him and whispered, "You have a call from a Special Agent Todd? She said that they found … a body." She made a face.

"I see. I'll be out shortly, thank you."

The nurse gave him a nod, looked briefly at Tony to see that everything was okay, and left.

"Apologies, Anthony. You should have the courtesy of not having to hear about work while you're here," he said. "But I will be back. With company, I'm sure."

He gave Tony a small, sad smile and left the room.

--------------------------------------------

Kate rose expectantly when she spotted Ducky and his assistant making their way towards them through the wild growth around the abandoned farmhouse. She waved them over – Ducky acknowledged that with a wave of his own – and hunkered down beside the body again.

"Single bullet to the heart," Gibbs muttered as he studied the body.

"Is this Tims?" Kate wondered out loud.

Gibbs fingered the nametag on the man's uniform. "Gunny Sgt Harold Tims. Doesn't mean anything without positive ID," he muttered.

"The bodies do not waste time appearing, do they, Jethro?" Ducky said as he finally got to their side.

"Dr Mallard – how is Agent DiNozzo?" McGee asked quickly before Gibbs could reply. Gibbs shot him an unreadable look, but didn't say anything about the unexpected question. Kate, meanwhile, looked up expectantly.

Ducky responded to McGee's question with a grim look.

Kate felt her heart beat faster. "Ducky … Tony …" she began.

"Oh, no, no, no, Kate. He's alive," Ducky gave her a shaky smile and a wave, as if to dismiss her fears. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that Gibbs' expression had visibly relaxed. McGee, meanwhile, exhaled in relief.

"He came out of surgery about two hours ago. But he's in a coma," Ducky murmured. He hated giving them bad news, but they had to know the whole ugly picture. He saw that Gibbs' expression had tightened once more. Kate closed her eyes and sighed.

"The serious concussion was bad enough on its own, but the hypovolemic shock because of the acute blood loss … it complicated matters considerably," he sighed. "It was close for a while. But he's now in the Intensive Care Unit and they're taking really good care of him," he reassured. Still, he could see that his words didn't comfort the team very much.

"Let's get to work, shall we?" Ducky said as he motioned his assistant over. "The faster we get this done, the faster we'll be at Tony's side."

-------------------------------------------

Intensive Care Unit

Washington Hospital

Washington DC

7 hours later

The room was dark, but the hissing and beeping sounds that came from it told him that somebody was occupying it.

And that somebody was one of his agents.

Tony DiNozzo was a shadow of himself. Still, silent and lifeless on the ICU bed, he was nearly hidden by the mass of wires and tubes plugging him into various contraptions. Gibbs could see the bandages beneath the flimsy hospital gown that he wore. What's not so hidden were the bandages around his head and the bruises on his pale face.

Gibbs watched the ventilator puff and hiss for a while, then grunted in annoyance. He hated those things. Having had one shoved down his throat once upon a time, he knew how uncomfortable these things were. And how much Tony's throat was going to pay for it later.

It took too long to get here. By the time the secured the crime scene, got the body back to the examination room and carted the evidence to Abby, six hours had gone by. Then he received the bad news that despite the roads being cordoned off, they didn't get Ed – he had gotten away somehow.

Now they had one more piece of evidence to secure before their job was considered done.

Gibbs's jaw worked – the only sign of anger that he displayed. For those who didn't know Jethro Gibbs well, he was the appearance of calm and professionalism, even when confronted with the mortality of one of his agents. A casual bystander, however, would have thought that he was a pure bastard for what he was going to do next.

He put on gloves, then took out the small evidence bag from his pocket and walked towards the bed. Gently, he lifted one of Tony's hands, carefully so that he did not jar the IV lines, and scraped the dirt – and hopefully, skin cells – from beneath his fingernails with an instrument. When he was done with the right hand, he cast one glance at Tony, wondering if his actions woke Tony from his unnatural slumber. Nope. Tony always did things the hard way, anyway.

While doing the same to Tony's left hand, Gibbs heard someone exclaim behind him: "What are you doing?"

Without turning away from the job at hand, Gibbs muttered: "Collecting evidence."

He heard the click, click, click of low heels and soon, a nurse appeared by his side, scrutinizing his work.

"Can't you wait till later, Agent Gibbs? For goodness sakes, he's in a coma!" exclaimed the ICU nurse who had signed him in – Marla Henderson, if he wasn't mistaken.

"Evidence doesn't wait, Ms Henderson. And it's at risk of contamination as it is," he said levelly. He was finally done. He zipped the material shut in the evidence bag.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Henderson glare hotly at him and mutter something that sounded like "bastard" before walking quickly to the exit.

"Someone has to be one ... to get the job done," Gibbs said, observing Tony.

Hesitantly, Gibbs reached out with a gloved hand and touched Tony's chest, feeling it rise and fall in tune with the ventilator. He felt his anger grow with each movement and whispered beneath his breath, his voice low with fury: "They're not going to get away, Tony. You got my word."

--------------------------------------------

_An hour later_

Kate was surprised when she saw Gibbs before Tony's bed, blocking her view of Tony. She didn't expect him to make it here before she did. Then again, the way Gibbs drove – anything was possible.

"Gibbs?" she called softly. The agent gave her a brief glance and a nod, but returned his gaze to Tony. When she moved to his side, she finally saw her partner. She closed her eyes and turned away, unable to process the sight of him hooked up to the array of tubes and wires.

_Funny. I told myself to be prepared for this. But it didn't work. Nothing can prepare you for this, _she thought bleakly.

"How is he?" she managed to ask after regaining her composure. _Stupid question, Kate. He's connected to a ventilator, bags of blood and an IV bag and God knows what else. Of course's he's not fine. _

"The same," he responded shortly. "Has Ducky gotten anything?" he asked, not taking his eyes off Tony.

"Umm. Yeah. Cause of death was a single bullet to the heart. He said some other medical mumbo jumbo that didn't make sense, but that's the gist of it. Ducky found the bullet lodged in the spine and Abby compared it with the bullet McGee found which had hit Tony. They don't match."

"And the only weapon found on the scene was Tims'." he said. Then sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"The bullet belonged to the gun," Kate said. She frowned when she saw Gibbs rubbing his eyes.

"When did you last sleep?" Kate demanded. When Gibbs didn't respond, Kate said, "It has been more than 24 hours, hasn't it? I can do the math."

"What are you getting at, Agent Todd?" Gibbs muttered tiredly.

"You _need _to rest. If we are going to catch the bastard that did this to Tony, we need you well-rested," Kate said firmly.

"I know what to do, Kate," Gibbs said in a surprisingly gentle tone. "But I'll stay here for now."

Kate looked as if she was about to protest, but at the last minute, held herself back. "I'll get some coffee," she said simply before leaving the room for a vending machine.

When Kate was finally gone, Gibbs sat down in the hard, plastic chair beside Tony's bed. _How did it come to this? _he wondered. _Should've sent him with Kate. Shouldn't have let him go alone. Damn it. _He clenched his hands into fists and stared at Tony.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

_"Lieutenant Tony DiNozzo?"_

_The disheveled-looking man leaning against the bridge rail looked up and gave him a suspicious look. "You asking?"_

_"I am," Gibbs countered. "Coffee?" he handed the man a styrofoam cup filled with the steaming liquid._

_"Is this some kind of joke?" the Baltimore Homicide detective demanded. "You NCIS people strolled into my life, ruined it, and now you're offering me coffee?" He shrugged into his coat and was about to walk away when Gibbs stopped him with a hand on his shoulder._

_"Hey. Nobody ruined your life, DiNozzo," Gibbs said and gave him a piercing glare. _

_"Then you don't know how the police department works, Gibbs. I ratted out on Parker. I **testified **against him in court. You should know that the PD doesn't take too kindly to people like me."_

_"The guys in it, maybe. Not the department. Detective Parker killed a naval officer who happened to be his drug pusher. You investigated, found him out and testified. I don't see anything wrong with that, do you?"_

_"Yeah, whatever," Tony muttered and pushed Gibbs' hand away from his shoulder. _

_He managed to walk a few feet away when Gibbs called: "You free at eight tomorrow morning, Lieutenant?"_

_Tony stopped in his tracks and glared at Gibbs. "Even if I am, you won't be seeing me with you."_

_"Well, I beg to differ, DiNozzo. You're going to be there."_

_"Hah! And is that so? Why, you have a hot chick you'd like me to meet?" he said and then grinned sardonically._

_"No. But I'm going to offer you a job," Gibbs gave him a grin._

_Tony, however, did not look impressed or even a bit amused. "Don't shit me, Gibbs. I don't even know what NCIS stands for," he snapped in irritation. _

_"Well, I think you're the one 'shitting' me, DiNozzo. I find it difficult to believe that you, having attended Rhode Island Military Academy, do not know what it stands for."_

_"Well, I wasn't paying attention in class that day," he said grudgingly. Then he frowned when he realized what that meant. "You read my personal file?" he said in indignation._

_"Well, if I'm going to make an NCIS special agent out of you, I gotta make sure you're not a serial killer first," Gibbs remarked dryly._

_That left Tony speechless. After a while, he said: "You're serious, aren't you?"_

_"Are you deaf, or just very dense, DiNozzo? I offered you the job **twice**."_

_Tony stared at Gibbs for a long while. So long, in fact, that Gibbs was starting to wonder if Tony had suddenly gone catatonic. However, the homicide detective sighed and then broke into a smile, laughing softly. Gibbs grinned. He already knew what Tony's answer would be._

_"Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, huh?" Tony beamed, rocking on his heels. "It kinda has a nice ring to it." His expression turned serious. "You think girls will dig that?"_

_Gibbs felt a hunch, just a tiny hunch, that having Tony as an agent in his unit is going to spike his coffee intake by a few more cups a day._

_"8am, DiNozzo. Don't be late," Gibbs said as he walked away._

_"I'll be there. On time and on the dot, boss!" he heard the man say in response._

"Gibbs?"

Gibbs started awake. Disoriented, he sat up straighter in the sparsely cushioned chair and looked up.

Kate was there, handing him what smells like a cup of coffee.

"How long was I out?" he asked as he took the cup. Gibbs had left Tony's room after an hour of silent vigil with Kate and had reluctantly agreed to rest in the waiting room outside the ICU after some determined pestering from her.

"About, oh, four hours."

"I told you to wake me up in an hour," he growled.

"My watch was slow," she shot back, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Relax. Tony's fine. Fine enough for a man in a coma, that is," she said, her expression turning grim momentarily. "Besides, Abby and McGee is inside."

"Abby? She should be at the lab, working the evidence!" Gibbs snapped.

"And she _did_, Gibbs. But she wants to see Tony. So does McGee."

Gibbs sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "Come on," he muttered as he rose and walked towards Tony's room.

--------------------------------------------

He remembered a gunshot. Then sharp pain, and everything going dark. But something important happened after that. He remembered blurry images ... thought he saw Gibbs looking worriedly at him.

He was pretty sure then that he was dreaming. Gibbs and worry don't go together.

Then blackness, and faint memories of being lifted. Loud sounds around him ... a chopper? A cacophony of voices ... it all got too confusing and he shut himself inside, unwilling to listen anymore. Between the voices, the pain, the terrible feeling of weakness that kept growing and growing ... it felt like he was falling to pieces. It was better to just shut it all out.

The darkness was comforting. Tony rested in it, not wanting to get out. But somewhere at the back of his mind he knew that if he became too comfortable in that darkness he'd never get out.

The thought alarmed him enough to spur him to fight through the slush that was his numbed mind.

He tried hard to will his senses to come alive, but nothing but inky blackness ... but there was something important ...

--------------------------------------------

"He looks so pale," Abby said. The nurse – Nurse Smithson or something – gave her a wan smile.

"I know it's hard," said Smithson gently. "But some good news – his blood pressure is up, and his ICP is not as high as before."

"ICP?" McGee asked.

"Inter-cranial pressure. Never mind, just know that that's a good sign. The doctor even said that if things continue to get better, they may take him off the ventilator today," she said as she checked Tony's IV drip and then ox levels.

"Does that mean he's waking up soon?" asked Abby as she squeezed Tony's hand.

Smithson gave her an uncertain look. "I can't say for sure. I don't want to give you any false hopes," she gave Abby a weak smile. "I'll be back to check up on him later."

"Wow," Abby said to McGee when Smithson finally left the room. "Do you think she's cute or what?"

"Well, uh …" McGee gulped. He looked like a cornered rabbit.

"Yeah, I thought so too," she said, bending down to DiNozzo. "You hear that, Tony? Nurse Smithson is a real looker. So, better wake up already."

Her smile faded and she sighed. "It's so weird to see him like this. So still. He's never still, you know? He's always moving around. And I hate how he's stuck to these machines," she muttered.

"Yeah," McGee said simply

"Abby," Gibbs called.

Both of them turned to see Gibbs standing at the doorway. The senior NCIS agent gave Tony a brief glance before gesturing at Abby and McGee to come outside.

"Hey, Gibbs," Abby said when they were outside. "I know what you're going to say, so let's regroup at the hospital cafeteria. McGee and I have a presentation to give ya," she said, tapping the notebook case that McGee was carrying.

--------------------------------------

Hospital Cafeteria

Washington Hospital

By joining two cafeteria tables and setting up her equipment on the joined tables, Abby had successfully set up a makeshift lab in the middle of the hospital's bustling cafeteria. In response to Abby's ingenuity, the NCIS team received more than one odd look from the doctors, nurses, patients and visitors patronizing the place.

"First off, according to his fingerprints, the body found at the farmhouse was Gunny Sgt Harold Tims. His right hand had gunshot residue, and better, his prints were all over the sucker. And based on the audio that we got, I think its a pretty tight case of Tims shooting Tony," she said.

"So, somebody executed DiNozzo's would-be executioner. But who shot Tims?" Gibbs wondered out loud.

"Whoever shot him, he's an expert. Either that or he's one lucky guy – got the man straight in the heart. The perp led the guy to the field and executed him, just like that," Abby snapped her fingers.

"Poetic justice, if you tell me," Kate said, her voice hard.

"And the DNA on the epithelial I collected from underneath Tony's fingernails?"

"That's going to take some time, Gibbs. It may take us up to 48 hours to comb through the DNA databases available and you know that the Army doesn't allow-"

"We don't have 48 hours," Gibbs snapped, cutting off Abby. Sighing, he rubbed his forehead and then asked: "What did you dig up on the Iron Butterfly so far?" Gibbs bent forward and studied the screen which had details on Harold Tims.

"This is where my man McGee comes in," said Abby, grinning. McGee smiled and went on to explain his findings: "At first, I got nothing much – nothing to connect Tims to the militia, however -"

"Get to the point, McGee," Gibbs grumbled.

"Yeah, sorry boss," McGee coughed. "But then I began to wonder whether there was some kind of connection. I mean the MPs found Petty Officer Sebastian Tomas shot dead in the file office and I thought–" McGee trailed off when he saw Gibbs' barely concealed annoyance.

"Okay, so I decided to hack into the militia server that we found last week to find a clue. And after some extensive digging, _accidentally _stumbled upon this–"

He tapped some commands into the laptop and then swivelled it around so that Gibbs and Kate could see what it was.

On the screen was a picture of a butterfly that looked as if it was made out of metal.

Kate frowned. "So, an iron butterfly. But what's that?" she asked, pointing to the changing numbers at the bottom of the page.

"We thought it was some kind of code, at first. Then, we realised that maybe we're looking too much into it," Abby said, her face becoming more animated as she went on. "Gibbs, what you're seeing is a _countdown_."

"A countdown ..." Kate looked up in shock. "They're planning something."

"We may not know what, but we know _when_. The countdown was in code, however, but after some tinkering, we figured it out. They're going to move in five days, ten hours, and ..." McGee gave the digits a brief glance, "...twenty one seconds."

"We think that this site is like a communication centre for the members of the militia to act in tandem. They receive their instructions _here_ from some unknown source that controls this server," Abby said.

"And you're going to find out who it is and where he's doing this," Gibbs said, giving McGee and Abby a deadpan look.

"Well, we have covered our tracks so far, but to get the perp's IP address and whereabouts, we'd have to do some major–"

"Don't want to hear it, Abs," said Gibbs. "Just get on it. We have less than five days to find out what the hell these traitors are up to or else we may have another Oklahoma bombing on our hands. Kate?"

"Yeah," she said, looking up from the screen that nearly hypnotized her.

"We're going to find out why the hell Tims was shot. And we're going to start with the dirtbag's home."

She nodded, her eyes shining with determination.

"Ah! There you are!"

The team turned around to see Ducky ambling towards them. He was grinning from ear to ear, looking really pleased for some reason.

"Good news, I just came from the ICU and–" his eyes caught the picture on the laptop screen. "Is that an iron butterfly? You know what's fascinating about the species is that it gets its name thanks to its silvery scales on its wings. It's really a pity that it's nearly extinct now – mostly due to the pollution around–"

"Ducky," Gibbs interrupted, giving the ME an irritated look.

"Ah right, yes, I was at the ICU. Dr Matthews gave me some good news – Tony's condition has stabilized enough for them to consider taking him off the ventilator. Hopefully, later today."

Abby and McGee exchanged glad looks.

Gibbs merely sighed. "Any chance he'll be waking up soon?"

"Dr Matthews can't say for sure, but the prognosis is good. The first 24 hours is always the most critical and Tony has passed it with flying colors. Thank God there weren't any complications to deal with – my fear was that his inter-cranial pressure would shoot up, or that his blood pressure would continue to fall. Anyway, now all we can do is wait and see," said Ducky seriously.

"Wait and see? Nothing else they can say for certain?" asked Kate, who frowned heavily.

"I know it sounds cruel, Caitlin. But that's the only news doctors can give at this stage," Ducky said.

Gibbs sighed again and then started rapping the table with his knuckles. "Right. Let's get moving. McGee, Abby – I want some kind of progress in two hours."

McGee looked as if he wanted to say something, but Abby smacked him on the shoulder - hard enough for him to wince - and smiled brightly at Gibbs. "On it, Gibbs!" With that, she gathered the equipment, urging McGee to do the same.


	7. Chapter 7

Hello everyone! Thanks for the wonderful reviews!

HoPo – haha, no, I wasn't offended at all! ;) Thank you for your encouragement and thank you for reviewing my story.

The Iron Butterfly

By Wyndhamfan

Chapter 7

"Abby is searching through the database to see if Tims knew any 'Eds'. It's going to take some time," Kate told Gibbs, who was busy going through Harold Tims' bookshelves.

"Tell her the time better be an hour," he said as he took out a book.

Kate sighed and reached for her phone again.

They were in Harold Tims' home, a single-storey dilapidated house in the army base. Unlike the others, Tims didn't have much pride in his house. Pizza boxes littered one corner of the room, emitting an unpleasant smell. The bed lay mere yards away; it was unmade and the bed covers nearly off the bed and unto the floor, as if Tims had some kind of drunken nightmare and dragged it to the floor with him for a nap.

What was odd about the place was that while Tims' furniture was barely serviceable, he had an impressive-looking solid wood bookshelf that lay smack in the center of a wall. It looked as if it could easily belong in Bel Air. Of course, naturally, that was what Gibbs zeroed in on.

While Kate talked to Abby, Gibbs analyzed the contents of the bookshelf in frustration. Nothing. Nothing to indicate Gunny Sgt Harold Tims inclination to topple the US government. Not a clue to this man who apparently not only shot DiNozzo, but executed Petty Officer Ken Logan and the file clerk, Petty Officer Sean Rims. (Abby compared the bullets found in both victims to the one that had grazed DiNozzo's temple. They matched.) Logan and Rims served in different bases, apparently had no connection to each other, but was apparently targeted by Tims for a reason.

The connection between Ken Logan and Harold Tims was clear enough – they both belonged to the militia dubbed The Iron Butterfly. And they're planning something. A coup? A kidnapping plot?

A bombing?

The possibility that the Navy had ready enemy operatives inside its ranks, ready to wreck havoc, was something that pissed him off till no end.

Gibbs was about to replace the book in the shelf when he saw something that made him frown. There was a gap in the back of the bookshelf; instead of showing the pistachio-green color of the walls, it showed inky darkness.

"Kate!" he gestured the agent to come to his side. "Help me with this thing," he said as he started pushing the bookshelf aside.

After much effort – it wasn't easy as the bookshelf weighted a ton thanks to the solid wood – they managed to uncover what lay behind the bookshelf.

And it wasn't pistachio-colored walls.

"So. What's behind door No. 1?" Kate mused, looking at the half-open door and the darkness that lurked behind it.

"A basement," Gibbs grunted as he pushed aside the door. It creaked. He felt for a switch, flicked it, and nothing happened.

"This always happens in horror movies," Kate quipped.

Gibbs only gave her an impatient look which promptly made her flinch.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"Rule No.45," said Gibbs as he reached into his coat pocket.

Kate looked at him with an arched eyebrow. "Always bring a flashlight?"

Gibbs afforded a smile. "Yeah," he said as he fished a small flashlight from his coat.

Together, they descended into the basement, which was in no better condition that Tims' living area. A single bulb, which worked, illuminated the room.

"How can he work down here? It's a pit. And a pigsty," Kate grumbled as she wiped her hands on her pants. She had just touched something wet and sticky, and she didn't want to find out what it was.

A beat-up-looking computer stood in one corner, alone and desolate. Pieces of paper lay around it, successfully covering the keyboard. Gibbs picked one up with a gloved hand.

"Petty Officer Ken Logan," he muttered, handing the paper to Kate. She realized that it was a personal document about his postings, and everything you'd want to know about Logan except his fetishes.

"How did he get this? Doesn't he need special access to get this kind of info?" Kate wondered out loud.

"With that kind of hacking skill behind the militia's servers, I'm not surprised if our militia hacker is responsible for it," Gibbs said.

"Or, they could have someone in that department with access."

Gibbs' frowned at that, but didn't acknowledge Kate's comment. The thought of more militia members embedded in the Navy riled him up too much.

He rifled through more of the documents. Found Sean Rims among the pile and a new name: Lieutenant Nora Hewitt.

"Could be a target," Kate said.

"Could be a terrorist," Gibbs said in return.

Just then his cellular rang.

"Gibbs," he answered.

"Hey Gibbs. I searched every database I could find about this Ed fellow, nada. There's like a thousand over people with that name, you know," said Abby as she twirled on her seat. She stopped halfway and said, "Hold up! I'm not finished, I don't waste your time, remember?" she said cheerfully. "So, like the DNA you gave me? From the epithelials that Tony scratched out? I know it was useless since we don't have the perp to compare it with, but I was bored, so I ran it through all our known databases. And guess what?"

"It came up?" came Gibbs.

"Yup. His DNA was in the CSI database. They keep this special database for 'hot' cases. And if it weren't for that, it would've taken me at least 48 hours to track the guy down. So, check it out – Thomas Eddington Sullivan is a bomb expert. Caught trying to plant bomb in the Sears Building. Made his escape from prison on April 25, 2004. Wanted by Interpol and the FBI," she said triumphantly.

"Uh, Abby?" came McGee from the background. He looked a little green. That's never good. It usually meant that he has major bad news to tell Gibbs.

"Abby?" Gibbs queried from his side.

"Hold on, Gibbs. McGee is in major trouble. I'll call you back." She snapped the phone shut without receiving a reply from Gibbs.

"Did you have to tell him that?" McGee protested, still in his chair. Still looking green.

"Well, it's the truth isn't it?"

McGee let out a big, long sigh. He pointed at the computer screen. "This look familiar?"

Abby rounded the corner to look at what he meant.

"Oh yeah. Real familiar. You're _doomed_, McGee."

McGee sighed again and let his forehead fall down with a thunk on the computer screen.

----------------------------------------

Gibbs and Kate were summoned back to NCIS headquarters pronto. By Abby. And judging from Abby's tone, it looked like they hit a major snag. A big snag.

A subdued-looking McGee and an equally subdued Abby stood by his desk. Gibbs frowned at that.

"You better have a good reason to drag me away from a crime scene, McGee," Gibbs said, his voice low.

"Well," McGee said as he adjusted his tie nervously, "There is, and, uh, it wasn't my idea to call you over-"

Gibbs merely crossed his arms and gave him a nuclear-blasted stare.

"Okay. So we were running Sullivan's DNA in the databases, and we got him in the CSI network. Then I noticed something peculiar. Someone was tracking our IP address, and had formed some kind of window-"

"When are you going to get it in your head, McGee, that techtalk does nothing for me? Spit it out," Gibbs snapped.

"It was a 'cyber' alarm, boss. Triggered when we searched Sullivan's file. And they found us," he gulped.

"Who?" Gibbs barked, his patience gone.

"Me," said a gravelly voice from behind them.

"And they're here," McGee said lamely.

Kate was the first to speak up. "You're not kidding me," she said in disbelief.

"No kidding, Agent Todd. Gibbs. Good to see you again," said the newcomer, throwing them the ever-familiar, ever-grating smirk.

"Fornell," hissed Gibbs.

_----------------------------------------_

"…_shoot me? I will …"_

Tony remembered trying to open his eyes to figure out who were speaking these cryptic words but failing miserably. At one point he gained enough strength to pry open his heavy lids, but all he got for his trouble were two blurry figures. He had closed his eyes, trying to focus on the voices.

"…_Iron Butterfly …he was a spy …"_

"…_think it was Logan? "_

"_Your plan will fail …get to work!"_

More nonsensical words. He was too tired to concentrate, so he drifted in and out for a while. But suddenly, a few words stood out from the buzz; words that jumped out at him and make his heart race.

" … _our soldiers are in place, and when New York_ _blows, the unlawful regime will notice …"_

He heard more words … important words, but he lost his tenuous grip on consciousness and sank into inky darkness.

He didn't know how long he was lost in that strange world. Occasionally he heard voices drifting around him. But he heard them as if through a thick fog, and he felt as if he was mired in slush.

It was important that he had to wake up. The bomb…

Then his attention was caught by a voice. He could almost recognize the speaker …

"I wasn't sure what music you'd like, so do forgive me, Tony, because I went through your things at the office," said Ducky.

Tony was no longer on the respirator. Instead, a nasal cannula provided him the pure oxygen that he needed. Unfortunately, thought Ducky, Tony was still comatose. It has nearly been two days since they found him in that abandoned farmhouse.

"Bastards," Ducky muttered. "Sorry, Tony. Not exactly enlightening talk to listen to. Which is why I thought you'd like to listen to the CD I found at your desk."

He placed the CD in the player and soon, the ICU room was filled with the voice of Billy Holiday singing _Georgia_ _On My Mind._

"Lovely music. I didn't know you were a jazz and blues fan, Tony. Always took you for a … you know, a Billy Idol sort of fellow. Did you know that jazz music was formed from the civil war era and the Emancipation period? Fascinating, really. Plantation music, for one, was one of the 'ancestors' of jazz."

Ducky carefully placed the plastic chair beside the bed and sat down gingerly in it.

"Uncomfortable little buggers," Ducky grumbled. "Never sat in a comfortable hospital chair. Not even once. I think they're designed to discourage people from staying too long."

His eyes drifted again back to Tony. He looked as animated as he was the past few days.

"Well. At least you'll get to be educated on the finer points of jazz while we're here, eh?" He made himself comfortable, clasped his hands and said: "Now. Let's begin before the civil war, when slavery was still an issue …"


	8. Chapter 8

Note: Hello, everyone! I know I'm abysmally late but real life has not been kind to me in the office. So much things to do! But good thing is that the next few updates, I promise, would not be as sloooow as before. Don't worry guys, I will not abandon this story halfway as I've worked out the plot till the last page already. Plus, I've already written the last few chapters, which is a good thing, eh?

Also, some of you more astute ones may notice that I tend to revert back to British spelling and grammar here and there ... I try to write in American English to my best ability, but old habits die hard (yes, I'm not an American).

Hope you'd enjoy this! Apologies for being so late!

**The Iron Butterfly**

**Chapter 8**

**By Wyndhamfan**

"I don't have time for your games now, Fornell," Gibbs growled.

"Oh, you're going to _make_ time, Gibbs," the senior FBI agent responded. "You checked out Thomas Sullivan, and he's off limits to NCIS."

"There's no such thing as off limits, not when one of my agents is in a hospital in a coma!" Gibbs' voice was rising, and it didn't look as if it'll come down any moment. The NCIS agents in the room – except McGee and Kate - had begun to clear the area. They were well-practiced, and they knew that in events like these, especially with Gibbs at the center of it, it'll do them good to be elsewhere.

"I heard about DiNozzo, Gibbs, and I'm sorry," said Fornell, failing miserably to sound sincere.

Kate threw him a disgusted look.

"_Really _sorry," Fornell threw her an inscrutable look in return. "But it doesn't change things. We've been investigating The Iron Butterfly for _years_, Gibbs. Years. And we're not going to let years of work go down the drain because NCIS is like an annoying fly that landed on the wrong dung heap."

Gibbs took one threatening step towards the FBI agent. "We may be a fly. But we bite. And when it comes to one of my agents being hurt, you better goddamn know that we draw blood," he hissed.

"Agent Gibbs," came another voice. This time, it was a voice which belonged to the only person who could put a rein on Gibbs when he was in this kind of mood.

"Sir," said Gibbs shortly, his eyes still on Fornell – who didn't look the least fazed.

NCIS Director Tom Morrow placed a gentle hand on Gibbs' shoulder and said, "Come with me Gibbs. Your agents can come along too. Fornell," he gave the FBI agent a nod.

When the group finally reached the MTAC room, Gibbs lost his patience.

"If you're telling me to back off from the investigation, sir, you don't know what you're asking of me," he said to the director.

"I'm not asking you to do anything, Gibbs. Except to share all your information with the FBI. And that the FBI do the same," he said, giving Fornell a pointed look.

Fornell looked shocked. "I honestly don't see-"

"Then I'll make you see, Special Agent Fornell," said Morrow levelly. "There may be more militia members embedded in the Navy. That's where NCIS comes in. We would appreciate it if the FBI is to share all the information they have on The Iron Butterfly with us. Unless you want to debate this in the higher-echelons of your department, which I assure you am backing me 110, and waste more time so that the bombers can do their work."

Fornell sighed and looked, strangely, amused. "I'm not surprised. So, a joint operation it is. Gibbs, from what I can see of the evidence you've collected – you've already got the man that shot DiNozzo. Figuratively speaking."

Gibbs threw Fornell a glare. "This goes beyond that, Fornell. We're here to stop another Oklahoma," he growled.

Fornell looked pensive for a while, then sighed and rubbed his chin with a hand.

"We have an agent in The Iron Butterfly, Agent Gibbs. That's why the situation's so delicate to begin with. His position was almost comprised because of your agent."

"What the hell does that mean? That Tony getting shot screwed up your investigation?" Kate snapped in anger.

"Well, yes, Agent Todd," Fornell said.

Kate's eyes flashed fire, but she managed to remain silent.

"Ed. He's your man, isn't he?" Gibbs said softly. But Kate could see that Gibbs didn't take Fornell's earlier comment well. His eyes were blazing.

Fornell gave Gibbs a toothy smile. "Bingo," he said. But the smile fell away quickly. "He saved DiNozzo's life and now he may be as good as dead."

"Oh really, and he told you that, how?" Gibbs asked churlishly.

"We were in contact after the incident with DiNozzo. If he had been made of other stuff, Gibbs, he would've allowed Tims to shoot him again and end DiNozzo for good. Instead, when Tims refused to listen to 'reason', he got rid of the problem by shooting Tims dead. Now I'm not even sure if his cover story is going to hold long enough for him to survive this operation. You should be _glad_ for my agent's help."

"Really? Which part of his help should I be glad for – your agent allowing DiNozzo to nearly bleed to death or DiNozzo now lying in a hospital bed comatose?" Gibbs asked scathingly.

"Gentlemen," Morrow interrupted, cool as always. "Tempers are high, people's lives are involved, but it doesn't change one thing here. The Iron Butterfly has a target. And we don't know what it is except that in three days, we'll have a disaster in our hands. Either we work together or bicker and watch that happen. So, what'll it be?"

A long while passed before Gibbs spoke up. "Fine. But he's going nowhere near my coffee. I don't share that," he growled.

"Gibbs. That coffee of yours is too dangerous to drink," Fornell returned.

Amazingly, Gibbs laughed.

---------------------

As she walked toward Tony's room, she heard jazz music. Kate gave the nurse a puzzled look.

"It's Dr Mallard," said Marla Henderson with a small smile. "Music and other sounds are known to stimulate coma patients," she explained.

"Ah," Kate said shortly, not sure what to say to that. As quietly as possible, she walked into the room and was surprised to find it empty except for Tony.

Three days.

She pursed her lips at the thought. Nearly three days since Tony was in a coma. The thought that he could stay that way forever ... she shook her head, unwilling to entertain the thought.

Slowly, she walked to his bedside.

She studied his still, slack features for a while, then said: "You have to wake up. You know why, don't you? Gibbs is driving McGee, Abby and me nuts."

Tony, of course, didn't answer.

"It is something you'd probably find funny, isn't it? Gibbs torturing me for the rest of my life?" she asked sardonically. "Not only is he driving us nuts with his demands, Fornell is there to rile him up even more, what with him so close-fisted with his 'secret operations'. Then we find out that in two days, something big is going to happen and here you are lying in bed, in a coma-"

She suddenly felt tears prick her eyes and quickly shut them to force the tears back. Didn't work. They only trickled down her cheeks, probably making a mess out of her mascara.

"Damn it. If I hadn't told Gibbs that you 'wanted' to visited Milwaukee Street ... you wouldn't be here!" she hissed.

"Kate?"

Surprised, Kate quickly ran a hand over her eyes and blinked at the newcomer.

"Ducky," she said with forced eagerness.

The medical examiner gave her an understanding smile, then made a big show of pretending he didn't see the tears.

"I just went out to get a cup of that blasted coffee. I was that desperate, Kate. I am beginning to think that Jethro's coffee was kindness compared to this junk," he said.

"You've been here all day?" Kate asked. She had regained her composure.

"Almost. Actually, just for three hours."

"Jazz?" she asked, gesturing towards the radio softly playing in the corner of the room.

"I found it in Tony's table while going through his things. Do you think he'll forgive me?" Ducky's eyes twinkled.

"Not unless you steal the phone numbers from his little black book," she quipped, giving him a smile.

"Ah, I was rather curious why he only had women's names in that address book," he said.

They fell silent after that, watching Tony. After five minutes, Kate shifted impatiently.

"This silence is killing me. _Him_ being silent, that is," she said, her voice serious.

Ducky merely nodded. "That's why I've been talking to him the past two hours. I know silence drives him crazy as well."

"Talking to him?" Kate wondered. "About what?"

"Ah, what else but the fascinating history of jazz?" Ducky beamed.

Kate blinked and did her best to restrain her grimace. "Wow. For _two _hours?"

"Well, actually if you counted yesterday's session it was four hours. Yes, it's amazing the depth of history found in the genre. One can go on and on and on about it. Now, for one, did you know ..."

As Ducky went on describing the jazz heritage of America and its ties to colonial England, Kate thought, for a little while, that perhaps it was fortunate that Tony was in a coma.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Billy Holiday. He was hearing Billy Holiday.

It took him an immense amount of thinking to come up with that answer. He had been trying to figure out who was singing in the background for ages now, and the answer just came. He felt immensely proud of himself about that.

And for some reason, as soon as he figured out the name of the singer, he suddenly sensed other things.

Like how cold his fingers were. He twitched them, hoping to lift them up and warm them ... or something, but his hands felt like they were cast out of iron and he gave up the effort.

Then he became conscious of his breathing ... in, out ... in ... out ...

It was still strangely dark. But not the same inky darkness that he was in for the past few ... what was it, days? Weeks?

The thought of him being in that place for that long alarmed him. Because there was something really important that he had to do.

If only he could remember what.

The darkness receded a little and he noticed a thin line of light across his vision. Fascinated, he tried to look beyond that thin line. The line expanded, and the darkness went away.

Blurry shapes in front of him. He blinked his eyes furiously, and his vision cleared a little.

He realised then that he was lying in a warm bed, but his fingers were cold. And that his head was turned to one side and that there was something on his face. Some kind of tube ... beeping sounds in the background, hissing sounds as well. The influx of information to his senses overwhelmed him for a while, so he closed his eyes again.

When he opened them again, the world wasn't as confusing. His brain had kicked in by then, processing the information, albeit slowly, for him.

He could figure out what he was seeing now. Walls... gray, drab. An IV line. And the prickling sensation he felt on his wrist told him that he was hooked to it. Damn, he hated those things. The last time he was hooked to one – back in his Baltimore days – he had the irritating habit of pulling them out in his sleep – he gave the nurses constant headaches. He gave himself headaches as well. It wasn't fun to be poked and repoked with that thing.

He was also aware how godawfully weak he felt. The light blanket on his body felt like a tonne of bricks pressing him down. Or maybe his body felt like a tonne of bricks.

He finally realized something amazing. The blurry shape before him, sitting on an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair was ... Kate.

_What was she doing in my room? _He thought. _Does she actually ... I don't know, is she worried for me?_

The thought brought a smile to his face. Or, rather, would have if he had the strength to even smile.

Kate was sitting in her chair, flipping through what looked like pages and pages of reports.

Watching her do that made him feel really tired suddenly. Because he knew that he would have a boatload of work to do once his stay in this room is over.

His eyes fell shut, and Tony DiNozzo finally slipped into the first restful sleep he had in days.

-------------------

He had gone out to get more of that terrible coffee and Kate had volunteered to stay with Tony for a while. After that, she had to return to work – they were hauling in one Lt Nora Hewitt for questioning.

Gibbs was working them hard. Too hard, as usual. Gibbs on a rampage was never good for anybody's sleeping cycles, thought Ducky.

When he last saw Abby and McGee they were doing some tech stuff on their computers. From their looks of frustration, it didn't seem as if they were getting anywhere. Kate, meanwhile, had run some background checks into Lt Hewitt and came up with a squeaky clean record.

"It's like she's the girl's scout of the Navy," Kate complained as she gathered her files, getting ready to leave.

"Appearances are deceiving as you know," Ducky answered.

Kate sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She looked incredibly tired, but Ducky knew that Kate, like Gibbs, was a driven sort of person, unable to rest until the case is solved.

"Fornell is giving us hell. Said that Special Agent Thomas Sullivan – Ed to you and me – cannot be exposed at a crucial time like this. So he's making it difficult for us to get to Lt Hewitt. They think that if we get to her, it may alert her 'colleagues'."

"Ah ... tricky," Ducky muttered. But to be honest, he understood little of NCIS/FBI politics.

"Looks like it's back to the bullpen," she said, giving Ducky a wan smile.

"Now Kate ... this is just a suggestion, but perhaps you could try sleeping instead?"

"Ducky, you've worked with Gibbs for ... how long?"

"Too long," he answered with a wry smile.

"Then you know why. Besides, I can't even if I tried," she muttered. She gave Tony a glance then frowned.

"Does he look different to you?"

Ducky looked behind him at Tony. Tony looked the same to him - pale, still and quite unconscious. He returned his gaze to Kate and raised an eyebrow.

"Don't know ... he seems ... more peaceful," she then gave a short laugh and shook her head. "Too much coffee," she quipped and then laughed shortly. "Bye Ducky."

"Goodbye, Kate," he said and watched her walk away.

Now it was just him and Tony.

As he sat in his chair, he realised that he was tired of talking about jazz. So a few minutes of silence passed between them and he sighed morosely, thinking that perhaps it was time to return home.

Dr Matthews was optimistic of his recovery, and believed that he could emerge from his coma soon. _Soon being this week or the next, _he thought wryly. But he knew that comas could be tricky. Some people with far worse head injuries recover from their comas ... some with less injuries remain in a coma for a long time. He flinched. A _very _long time.

He sighed and lifted his eyes and nearly had a heart attack.

Tony's eyes were open.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Iron Butterfly**

**Disclaimers in Chapter 1**

**Note: **So sorry guys! I know I'm worse than late right now. Work has been getting to me, and the worst thing was – my laptop died! (thinking of getting an Apple iBook next, but with the Intel switch thing …) So, writing took a serious backseat. But I'm back now, on a beat up Pentium II. Sorry for the wait. And oh yes, a bit of bad language here.

PS: To those who have watched _Twilight_. I miss Kate already:(

CHAPTER NINE

It was a struggle, but after some lobbying by NCIS director Morrow, Gibbs got his wish to "keep an eye" on Lt Nora Hewitt. He had conceded very reluctantly with Fornell that taking her in right now, the day of the operation, would alert her counterparts – if she was part of The Iron Butterfly, which he suspected 110.

So they were now in the car, silently observing Lt Nora Hewitt's single-storey house. It was way too early in the morning, thought Kate.

The stifling silence in the car didn't help either. Gibbs was way too intense – she knew that meant he was focusing hard on his so that he didn't have to think about what's bothering him.

"He's fine," she said.

The only indication that Gibbs heard was the slight tightening of his jaws.

"Still in a coma. But fine. You don't have to say anything. I know you're worried. I know this whole 'honest with your feelings' thing freaks you out, so I'll speak for the both of us: 'I'm worried.'"

"Kate?"

"Yeah?"

"She's out."

Kate followed Gibbs' eyes to see Lt Nora Hewitt, in full dress uniform, locking the doors behind her.

"Cool," she muttered dryly. She got Abby on her cellphone. "Abby, is the GPRS working?"

"Like clockwork, Kate," she said cheerfully.

Nobody had the right to sound so cheerful at 6am in the morning, thought Kate. It's just wrong.

Hewitt eventually drove off, Kate activated the GPRS screen and Gibbs was off – driving more gently than he's accustomed to.

XXXXXXXXXX

**Washington****Hospital**

**ICU **

"Tony?" he got up from the chair and went to his side.

The man didn't answer but continued staring. Tony's eyes were half-opened and glazed; Ducky did not detect any hint of lucidity behind them. Neither did they move to follow his movements from the chair.

Ducky felt his heart sink. Contrary to popular belief, comatose patients do display misleading signs that they're emerging from their comas. Some may even laugh or cry ... but they are completely unable to respond to instruction or requests.

But he had to hope somehow. "Tony? Can you hear me?" he asked, and then moved to a spot where Tony could see him.

He was about to lose hope again when Tony's eyes suddenly shifted. Ducky stared in fascination as they search dazedly for something, then eventually shifted to meet his. Oh yes, this was definitely a _response_.

"Tony, do you know who I am?" he asked softly.

"... jazz man?" Tony asked after a long pause. His voice was a weak, raspy whisper.

Ducky frowned. Then Tony flashed him a pale shadow of his trademark smirk. "Ducky," he answered dutifully. He then grimaced in pain and closed his eyes.

"Are you all right, Anthony?" Ducky asked in concern.

Tony's eyes flickered opened and he looked worriedly at Ducky. He lifted a hand – which promptly flopped back – and gestured to his throat with a pained expression.

"Oh, no. You throat's not injured. You were on a ventilator for a while."

Tony grimaced and opened his mouth to say something.

"Don't talk too much, Tony. You need to rest. You had a serious concussion and had lost a lot of blood. That's what you need the most now."

"Blood?" Tony rasped.

Ducky gave him an amused look. "_That_ too."

Against his will, Tony felt his lids come down. "Important ..." he whispered.

Ducky frowned. "What did you say, Tony?"

Using all his strength, he pried his lids open and whispered, "Something important ..." then he was gone again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lt Nora Hewitt did nothing spectacular the entire day. She entered a military building where she worked as tech support, and stayed there for hours. Now it was noon, and they were still waiting.

Kate hated waiting, and she could see that Gibbs chafed at the unreasonable delay himself.

"We're wasting time," she hissed under her breath. She took Gibbs' silence as a 'yes'.

"We have to bring her in, Gibbs. I mean, we only have a _day_ left!"

Gibbs' mobile rang then. Kate sighed, and then looked with dull interest at the exit of the building. However, she perked up when she heard Gibbs snap, "He did _what_?"

With that, he got out of the car and slammed the door so hard that the car shook.

"Gibbs!" Kate cried as she ran after the agent. "What happened?"

Gibbs continued walking towards the building, his strides long and fast. Kate had a hard time keeping up with him. Whatever it was that he heard over the cell, Gibbs was furious – she's never seen him this worked up before … not even with the terrorist/Mosad agent nobody dares to talk about around Gibbs.

A moment later, Kate got her answer when Lt Nora Hewitt appeared at the exit. Handcuffed. With four FBI personnel escorting her out. Fornell was, of course, with them.

She saw a murderous look in Gibbs' eyes, and she was half afraid that he'd deck Fornell. The other half didn't mind that much.

"You sent us on a wild goose chase?" she yelled, her eyes flashing.

"Now, Agent Kate-" Fornell began.

"Please, I don't understand what's going on!" Hewitt said, her eyes wide with confusion as she looked at Gibbs pleadingly. "They didn't tell me what this is all about."

"Lt Nora Hewitt is under NCIS' 'care', Fornell. You're out of line," Gibbs said, his voice so taut with anger Kate half expected it to break in mid-sentence.

"No, I'm not. She may be a terrorist, and when it comes to that, the FBI is in charge. And no, Agent Todd. We didn't send the both of you on a wild goose chase. The information just came in. It's over."

"Terrorist!" Hewitt began to protest. "Look, I'm not-"

"What?" Gibbs hissed, taking a small step towards Fornell. It took all of Kate's strength to keep quiet by Gibbs' side.

"It's _over_," Fornell repeated. "Special Agent Morrison came through just half an hour ago. We have our location. FBI teams are swarming over the area as we speak."

Kate shifted her eyes just ever-so-briefly to Hewitt. She saw something flash across her delicate features and Kate was hit then with something certain: Hewitt was worried. It didn't take a profiler to see that, but it took a profiler to catch that flicker of anxiety in time.

She _is _part of The Iron Butterfly. From Gibbs' discreet look at Hewitt, Kate had no doubt that Gibbs spotted that too. Her eyes narrowed at Hewitt.

"You want to fight over jurisdiction, Fornell? You don't want to do that with me. Not right now," Gibbs growled.

"Give it up, Gibbs. The Iron Butterfly's operation has been cracked. There is no more case. And that's all I'm going to say," said Fornell.

They watched in frustrated silence as Fornell's team led what was rightfully theirs away.

"We have to get her. She is part of the militia and there may be more of them in the Navy," Kate muttered.

"We _will_," Gibbs muttered. "Fornell just did the worst mistake in his life."

Her eyes still on the retreating figures, she asked grimly, "Why is that?"

"He crossed me. The second time," he muttered.

* * *

CHAPTER TEN 

Gibbs had the pleasure of witnessing NCIS Director Tom Morrow lose his temper only once. It was a sight to see him chewing the politicos that sat on their thrones on the federal agencies. Morrow never raised his voice, not even a notch. But the look in the eyes of the other directors told Gibbs what he needed to know: They knew that Morrow meant business, and they better stop being tight asses or _else_.

But nothing, and he meant nothing, beat the look on Fornell's face when FBI Assistant Director Walt Fuller slung an arm around Fornell's shoulders, smiled genially and said:

"Are you trying to fuck up your career, Fornell?"

Gibbs, with Kate standing beside him in the FBI headquarters in Quantico, maintained his blasé aspect. Kate didn't manage quite as successfully. She smirked for about a second and then the mask of professionalism was back on.

Fornell's smile fell and he looked at Fuller in astonishment. "Sir?"

"Now. Maybe we didn't make ourselves clear. And when I mean 'we', I meant the director and me. I mean, I can bring the President in on this, but you don't want me to do that do you? Not when he's up to his forehead with the Iraqi elections and all, isn't that right, Fornell?"

"Yes, sir," Fornell agreed, but he cast a discreet glare at Gibbs, who this time, grinned in return. "Sir, we've had this investigation for two years now. Lt Hewitt may be the key to unlocking the rest of the militia's identities. Giving her up now–"

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, Fornell. When we said 'cooperate with NCIS' we meant, _cooperate_, not compete. You want to play department politics? Then get off this case and get your knuckles cracking with the top hats for my position. But when national security is at stake, I'd rather you concentrate on terrorists and such. You got me?" Fuller had dropped his Mr Buddy act, giving Fornell a look that made the agent stiffen.

"I do," Fornell grated out.

"Hand over Lt Nora Hewitt to NCIS _now_, Fornell. NCIS will be taking over the interrogation. You'll be sitting in, but Gibbs has the reins," he said, his voice low and menacing.

"Yes, sir," Fornell said again, very unhappily at that.

Fuller patted Fornell on the shoulder, giving him a big smile. Mr Buddy was back in business. "That's great, Fornell. Knew you'd understand." Fuller gave Gibbs a brief look and said, "Gibbs."

Gibbs nodded in acknowledgement and watched as Fuller walked away whistling, hands in his pockets.

"He seems to be in a good mood, don't you think?" Gibbs asked Fornell.

Fornell, on his part, only gave Gibbs a steely glare. "She'll be in NCIS headquarters in an hour."

"Make that 30 minutes," Gibbs added.

"Forty," Fornell snapped, and then he turned and _marched _off.

Kate allowed herself a big smirk this time. "You're not going to tell me how you did this, are you?"

"Nope," Gibbs answered shortly, his eyes still on Fornell's back. He had on a big, satisfied grin, and Kate thought he looked like a cat that just ate the canary. _And_ rat.

Just then, her mobile rang. Frowning at the number – it was Ducky – she answered it nervously.

"Ducky?"

Gibbs turned at that and frowned. His tensed expression turned to one of puzzlement when he saw Kate suddenly smiling.

"Really? Thank God," she sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "When? Can we come over and see him?" This time she gave Gibbs a look. Then she smiled. "Got it."

She got off the mobile and told Gibbs what he already suspected. "Tony's awake," she said with a smile. "Ducky said we can go over and see him ... apparently he's been asking for you."

Gibbs' eyebrow arched at that.

"Well, gee Gibbs. He does care for you, you know," she gave him a cheeky smile.

The senior NCIS agent did not reply. Instead he rolled his eyes and walked towards their car.

"You don't have to tell me anything, Gibbs. I know you felt touched by that!" Kate said.

Washington Hospital

Tony lifted his hand and then turned it, studying the IV needle and line that snaked down his arm. With a thud, his hand fell back to the mattress. Energy was not something he had in high amounts these days.

He sighed and stared at the bland ceiling. Nothing much to do except to count the number of squares on the ceiling and to count how many beeps the heart monitor has made. The nasal cannula was also irritating the heck out him, and despite having used all his charms on Nurse Henderson (whom he'd taken to calling Marla) nobody was removing it any time soon.

"I mean, it's not that I can't breathe. I am breathing perfectly fine!" he had told Marla, and then promptly started coughing. Damn body, betrayed him just when he was making progress.

Marla gave him a knowing look, patted his arm and told him to take a nap.

Not that he could've resisted the order with the amount of drugs they were pumping into him.

Thinking was also a difficult enterprise ... and a cursory look to his left confirmed his suspicions. Yay, morphine.

It was also responsible for the occasional happy, giggly, floaty spells he had for the past five hours since he woke up. It's a good thing that McGee was not around to see him giggly. He'd never live it down.

Speaking of colleagues, where was everyone? He wondered. He frowned ... he did remember Kate being here ... then there was Ducky. But where were they now?

A little bit of brain-picking made him realise that they were most probably after whomever who shot him ... or the person responsible for the bomb. His muddled brain felt that the word "bomb" was important, but the more he concentrated on the thought, the more it eluded him.

The next thing he knew, he was stirring from sleep. _Fell asleep somehow_, he thought. He had trouble staying awake for longer than five minutes, and had been sleeping on and off for the past few hours. _Well, that's better than being in a coma for three days ... _he still had trouble wrapping his head around that fact.

"... asleep now, maybe you can come back later?"

"Yeah, we'll do that. Can't stay long anyway."

Wait. He knew that voice. Gibbs. Gibbs was here?

He cracked his eyelids open and saw Gibbs with Kate, both of them talking to Marla. He contemplated the interesting sight for a while until Gibbs must've noticed someone staring at him and looked his way.

Gibbs smiled. Whoa. _He smiled. At me, of all people, _Tony thought in amazement. He didn't even think Gibbs had "smile" muscles.

"Weird ..." he slurred.

"What's that, Tony?" Gibbs asked.

At that question, Tony had to smile, thinking of the many times Gibbs had directed the question at him but not with that strange, gentle tone he had on now. Usually it's a prelude to him being smacked in the head.

"Nothing," he said, but was surprised at how weak his voice sounded. It didn't matter how much he tried, but he still couldn't make himself go above a whisper. That embarrassed him a lot.

"Hey," Kate said, appearing beside Gibbs. She smiled – again, freaky. She had this patient, sisterly, warm smile on.

"You both look weird," he concluded.

Kate's expression changed to one that he was more familiar with – exasperation.

"Gee, thanks Tony. And here I was worried about you," she said. But she was still smiling. Was it relief he saw?

"You feeling okay?" Gibbs asked gruffly.

"Tired ... _high_ ..." he said, managing to stifle a giggle as he gestured towards the morphine drip.

Kate only smirked.

He suddenly remembered something ... with a look of alarm, he asked Gibbs: "Bomb ... there is a bomb ..."

Gibbs nodded and sighed. "Yeah. The FBI arrested four men today. Attempted to plant a bomb in Capitol Hill. Not the most original idea."

Tony frowned ... somehow that didn't reassure him. Something tickled at the back of his mind. Gibbs caught the look pretty quick.

"Yeah. Me too, DiNozzo. Something's not right."

Kate blinked and gave Gibbs a puzzled look. "This is new. I thought everything's 'settled'?"

"Settled, Agent Todd? My gut says there's more. Which is why we need to get to Lt Hewitt as soon as possible," Gibbs said in a low voice.

"Special Agent Gibbs?" Marla came in, carrying a tray that looked suspiciously like medicine. Great, if it isn't enough that they're pumping it into him, they're now making him take it in orally too.

Gibbs acknowledged her with a nod.

"Sorry, Agent Gibbs ... but Tony needs his meds now. And his rest ... so, preferably he should have no reminders about work," she added with a stern look.

"Sure," said Gibbs casually. With a look at Tony, he said: "You rest," he said – which came out sounding like an order. Only with Gibbs, you're never sure if he means it that way.

Tony only nodded and watch them leave. And why, despite being told about the plot to blow up Capitol Hill, did he still feel so uneasy?


	10. Chapter 10

Hello guys,

I know you are really looking forward to more chapters … and here is why I have to sorrowfully say that this story is on hiatus because I have writer's block on this particular story. Also, I have such limited time to write these days, so I tend to concentrate on stories that flow out easily.

However, don't panic. I'm determined to finish this story – and the _other _unfinished story in my queue, the LOTR one (eeps!) so I hope you can bear with me a little while. (I really hate doing things halfway)

Really, really sorry for this!

Wyndhamfan


	11. Chapter 11

**The Iron Butterfly**

By Wyndhamfan

**Note: **Oops. Kill me, but I found this chapter sitting in my laptop unpublished. Argh! (My laptop died a few months back, and I thought it was lost. And that's the main reason for my creative block:P) So I'm glad to present you this chapter. I'm sorry to have made you guys wait for so long, truly I am. But I promise you that the Iron Butterfly is coming to an end soon. Just one or two more chapters to go. See ya!

**CHAPTER 11**

He was in his parents' hated apartment on Fifth Avenue. They were having one of the 'social' parties they have about a gazillion times a year. If he was good, the nanny would bring him out for a while to meet the guests while his father could pretend being fatherly for a while.

He hated how his father would act so nice and warm and all that and ruffle his hair. Without guests around to watch his performance, he'd usually leave him to the able and well-paid hands of his nanny. If he was lucky, he'd see his father to give him a report of his day.

So, he usually slipped off. And when he did that, he would pretend to be Invisible Boy, quietly watching the antics of the grown ups – because that's what would happen anyway. People would stop noticing him, busy as they were with schmoozing each other.

There was his mother, talking to Carla Simmons. Mom called her "old money", and Tony wondered why someone so young could be considered old and why she is supposed to look like money.

"So, that's what you're going to do. Throw away everything and be a _cop_."

"You make it sound as if it's a bad thing. Dad."

He recognized the voices, and when he looked up, he saw himself – only about fifteen years later. Which was weird because there he was seven years old, and watching his 22-year-old self getting a dreaded dressing down from DiNozzo Sr.

"You are a DiNozzo, Tony. You are destined to take over the bank – the bank has not left DiNozzo hands for two generations!"

His father was holding a glass of champagne. A ridiculously romantic drink at a time like this. He saw his older self swallow nervously and stiffen.

"Banking, Dad? Did you see how I did in Math?"

"Always the one with the mouth, aren't you?" said his father bitterly as he placed the champagne glass aside. "Get the stupid idea of yours out of your head. You're going to Harvard this fall, and that's final."

This time, he didn't restrain his anger. "Study some more, Dad? I'd rather spend the rest of my life in a dentist's chair! I'm going to the Academy. And _that's _final."

"Oh, is that so?" his father's voice dipped dangerously. It used to scare the hell out of him, but at that moment, it was fuel to his anger.

"Yeah, _that's _so. Father." Quickly, before he lost his nerve, he turned to walk out of his father's oppressive study.

From the seven-year-old Tony's viewpoint, he could see DiNozzo Sr's jaw working and his pale blue eyes turning glacier cold.

"Walk out of that door, Tony. And I'll cut you off. And we will not speak again until you turn back from this foolhardy plan."

He turned, amazed at the threat. Just how far would his father go to win this battle? All his life his father had bent him to his will and he always won, but this time he wasn't going to let his father win. If he did not make a stand now, his life will no longer be his … but his father's.

"Suits me just fine. Goodbye, Dad." And he had turned away.

"You're going to end up in the gutter," his father muttered bitterly.

The words stung him more than he thought it would. But he had forced himself to walk on, ignoring the veil of tears in his eyes.

His father was as good as his word. That very same afternoon, he was notified by their lawyers that he had been cut off from his father's will. His bank account was also cleared, not a single penny was left.

His dream self watched the worst fight he had ever had with his father numbly. It wasn't something he'd like to replay in his mind. For years, he had deliberately shut thoughts about his family away from his mind. The last time he saw his father was at his mother's funeral, and they didn't speak. Tony had left a white rose on her coffin. His father watched him from afar, then walked off with his entourage – with his new heir-apparent to the bank by his side.

Replaced, just like that.

"Don't leave!" he found himself calling out to the retreating figure. "You're going to regret it!"

The older Tony didn't listen to him.

"You've got to warn them! Don't leave! It's in New York!"

Then he was suddenly the older Tony, looking at the young Tony. His seven-year-old self was pointing at the window, where his father now stood, nursing his drink.

Puzzled, he looked at the younger DiNozzo for some kind of clue until he felt the room heating up. It was getting hot, really hot. Confused, he looked at the boy for a clue.

"What is going on?" he asked the boy.

Tony looked and him beseechingly, then carefully said: "Our soldiers are in place, and when New York blows, the unlawful regime will notice."

And he saw the buildings outside on fire. Horrified, he yelled at his father to come away from the window, but the man gazed at the burning building as if they were attractions at the Mardi Gras.

And then the window exploded and he turned his head away to avoid the flying shards.

He emerged from his dream with a stifled cry.

"Hey, shh! Easy, easy. It's just a dream," someone said. He felt someone grab his hand.

Disoriented, he pulled his hand away from the too-hot touch and shivered.

"Who … what?"

He saw a silhouette lean towards him. A woman, that much he knew. But the terror from the dream was still too real. All he could do was stare at the shadow as he took gulping breaths, waiting for his heart to resume a normal tempo.

"That's some dream you had," said the visitor.

He recognized the voice finally. "Paula?" he rasped, confused.

Special Agent Paula Cassidy leaned forward so that he could see her more clearly. "Yeah, it's me."

"What are you doing here?"

She smiled at him as if he'd just asked a stupid question. "I happened to be at NCIS headquarters. Was trying my best to avoid you, only someone told me that I didn't have to bother. You were here, in the hospital." Her expression turned serious. "So I came."

His heartbeat finally slowed down. But he could still feel the heat of the flames.

"You're not doing a very good job of avoiding me," he said dryly.

She gave him a crooked grin. "Well. I was never very good at saying no to you," she murmured, her expression serious.

"How are you feeling?" she asked after a while when it seemed as if he had gotten his bearings back.

"I feel weird," he rasped. And it suddenly hit him like a tonne of bricks.

"He said New York!" he exclaimed, sitting up.

Or at least tried to. The wires he was attached to made the enterprise more than a little awkward. But what really did him in was the sudden nausea that attacked him. He sank back with a groan.

"What the hell are you doing, DiNozzo? You are not exactly in shape to walk out of here if you noticed," Paula snapped, pushing him down with a hand on his chest.

He grabbed Paula's hand. "Paula, you've gotta get Gibbs."

She frowned in confusion. "Why?"

"New York. I heard Tims said that they're going to blow up New York."

A shadow of understanding crossed Cassidy's face. "You mean the terrorist attacks that Gibbs was working on? It's over. They managed to stop the operation at Capitol Hill."

"No, not there. It's New York, I'm sure of it."

"Tony. You've been in a coma for three days. You must've gotten it conf-"

"You don't understand. I finally remembered what happened!"

Paula looked taken aback. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I remember…" he murmured.

_He stirred, aware of the pain that was throbbing in his head. In his shoulder. Everywhere. Was he dying? Finally? Is this how dying felt like? His father said that he would come to a bad end. He supposed DiNozzo Sr was right. Again._

"…_can hear me, Agent DiNozzo?"_

_He winced, recognizing the voice of Ed … Tim's partner. Probably going to finish him off since he realized that there was a spark of life left in him._

"…_sorry, DiNozzo, that I didn't stop him earlier. Never thought he'd be so reckless and stupid."_

_Ed is sorry? A little too late, he thought._

"_Listen. In case I don't make it and you do. Tims doesn't know **anything. **She made sure that he didn't. It's not Capitol Hill. It's not New York city either. What, do you think she's that crazy? It's **a** New York **county**. Saratoga. She said it is a place she hated the most."_

Tony's eyes widened.

"Saratoga."

Paula frowned. "What?"

"It's somewhere in Saratoga county, in the place she hated the most!" Tony yelled.

"Stop yelling. I hear you," she said, taking out her cell phone, already dialing Gibbs.

"Do you know who this 'she' is?" Tony asked desperately.

Paula smiled at that. "I don't, but I have a good idea that Gibbs does."

**TBC … two more chapters to go! Creative block gone now that I found this chapter. Yahoo…. **


	12. Chapter 12

**Note: **Dear all. I know, God, it took me SO long to come up with an ending. And truly it's all my fault and I can only say sorry to you guys. But no more waiting. Here are the last chapters. And thus ends the _Iron Butterfly_.

**Chapter 12**

Lt Hewitt was still playing innocent. Gibbs watched her protesting as she was released from her cuffs by an FBI agent, and then shifted his gaze to the photograph Fornell had just passed to him. Hewitt didn't look so innocent talking to Howard Baker, leader of the Southern Brothers, a militia group the FBI had been watching for nearly a decade.

"We've got her, Gibbs. All that intel courtesy of my agent who was undercover for nearly five years. She has ties with other militia groups; we suspect that this operation is not just Iron Butterfly's alone – which is why they're capable of attacking a few places at once," said Fornell, tapping the file he had in his hands.

Gibbs grunted in acknowledgment. The FBI did good work, he had to admit, judging from the little that Fornell allowed him to see from that thick file.

"Sullivan was supposed to tell us about the other targets, but we lost contact with him at about the same time your agent got shot," the FBI agent looked at him pointedly. His tone was almost accusatory.

Gibbs merely gave Fornell a dismissive glance before signalling McGee to bring Hewitt into the interrogation room.

Fornell sighed and leaned against the wall and stretched an arm across the corridor. Gibbs lifted an eyebrow at his not-so-subtle attempt to block his path.

"Look, Gibbs. I know we've not ... _played _well together. But I have two concerns. One – that we nab the sons of bitches before they blow up innocent civillians. Two – I want my agent back alive. Sullivan is a good man, Gibbs. I promised his wife that I'll bring him back alive."

This time, Gibbs met Fornell's eyes. Gone was the usual smugness; in a rare show of humility, Fornell allowed a trickle of his desperation to shine through his eyes.

"I think we both share the same goals, don't we?" Fornell said in a low voice.

Gibbs stared at him for a while, then nodded grimly. "Yeah."

Both knew that it was probably one of the rare times that they actually saw eye to eye. And it happened because of the stakes now involved the lives of their men and the safety of their country. All department games ended the moment the two things were in peril.

Fornell handed him the file, and Gibbs looked briefly surprised.

"Everything on Hewitt. Don't screw this up," he growled.

"Funny. Wanted to say the same to you a while back," Gibbs said, flashing the man a crooked grin.

Fornell rolled his eyes.

Just when Gibbs was about to head out to the interrogation room, Fornell grabbed his arm.

"One thing you need to know about her. She's one tough nut to crack. May have a few screws loose too. Don't underestimate her."

"Then we'll need a tougher hammer to crack her," Gibbs drawled.

***

Kate had seen Gibbs in action many times, and she would give the hapless soldier about an hour – at most – to crack like - as Tony would say - "Coco pops in hot milk."

But today, from the observation room, she couldn't help but think that Gibbs may have met his match at last.

"She's not saying anything, Kate," McGee whispered, echoing her thoughts and, as usual, saying the very obvious.

Usually she'd confidently tell McGee that Lt Hewitt would crumble soon enough, but Hewitt, so far, met Gibb's usual intimidation techniques with a cold smile. And it's already an hour plus. But Gibbs, to his credit, has not shown one ounce of doubt or frustration. He met Hewitt's coolness with an icy smugness that would've rattled the best of them by now.

But not Hewitt.

She frowned.

Which only meant that Hewitt was so confident that her plan would work even if she was caught. Which meant that they still couldn't see Hewitt's big plan despite all the intel that Fornell had provided. Well, at least Hewitt dropped her "I am innocent act" when Gibbs slapped the file with the incriminating photos on the table. Kate's breakfast would have made a reappearance if she had continued her performance.

When Hewitt finally lifted her eyes from the photographs that Gibbs had casually flicked towards her, the doe-eyed "innocent" and loyal soldier of the US Navy was gone, replaced by a cunning schemer with cold, blue eyes. She had smiled coyly and said, "Oh dear. I've been tagged."

Seriously confident or maybe seriously insane.

"Shit," Kate muttered.

"What?" McGee asked, alarmed.

"We're running out of time," she hissed, slapping her fist against the mirror.

When she was a Secret Service agent she'd always felt edgy when the President stepped out of safe cover to meet civilians or dignitaries in the open. All that exposure, all those opportunities to put a bullet between his eyes... the only difference now is that the bullet is probably a weapon of mass destruction, and the victim: US civilians.

"You're telling me," McGee muttered, looking at the ticking clock above them. "It's over an hour already."

Just then, the door to the observation room swung open, startling the two. Kate was even more puzzled to see Paula Cassidy striding anxiously towards them.

"Hey. Tony says he has some important information he says you guys would need."

***

Gibbs would never ever admit this to anyone, but keeping cool during an interrogation was next to impossible for him. Over the years, he'd toned down his firecracker temper to the point where people couldn't see that he was boiling under his icy exterior. But although it was a fiery sea of lava inside him, he had never come close to bursting before. Until now.

"Feeling hot, Agent Gibbs?" Hewitt asked sweetly.

Gibbs grinned crookedly. "Concerned, Hewitt?"

"Well. The last thing I want to do is put a civil servant out ..." she drawled in a sweet as sugar and plums Southern accent.

"No trouble at all. The intel on every member of Iron Butterfly in this file will keep me interested in a long time," Gibbs showed her the file. Hewitt didn't even bother looking at it. She smiled sweetly.

"Gibbs. I can call you Gibbs, can't I? Since I presume I'm no longer employed by the US Navy? Well, Gibbs. It doesn't matter if each and every one member of Iron Butterfly is caught. We live for the mission. And that is to bring down the United States any way we can," her eyes briefly flashed with fury.

She continued: "You may riddle us with bullets or hang us till we die, but we will make sure that the United States of America burns."

At that, she smiled, showing off her pearly white teeth.

The tide of fire in him was peaking now, and he knew that Hewitt could see the anger burning through his eyes.

And he nearly lost it when the door to the interrogation room opened. Kate hesitated when he saw his enraged eyes, but determined, she walked towards him and whispered something in his ear.

And the tide fell back ... and he saw a way into Hewitt's diamond-hard, spiky shell.

Kate left, casting a cold glare at Hewitt before she marched out of the door. Hewitt watched the entire exchange with mild interest, her mouth cresting into a tiny smile.

But Gibbs could see the first trace of uncertainty in her eyes when she saw the look in his eyes. Fellow predators recognised that look in each other.

Without a word, he followed Kate outside to find that Fornell and McGee waiting for him outside.

When Kate passed him Paula's message, he finally smiled. The tide was so far out into the ocean he couldn't see it now.

"Your agent just came out of a coma, Gibbs. Are you sure he's not leading us on a wild goose chase here?" said Fornell immediately.

"I know Tony," Gibbs said simply.

"Well, I _don't_, so why don't you explain to me why we should take that lead seriously?" Fornell snapped.

"Saratoga is a weird target if any though, boss," said McGee.

"Nothing important is happening in Saratoga, Gibbs. Unless you count the weekly clambake sale an event worthy of national security," Kate said.

Fornell's file on Hewitt was comprehensive. He knew about Hewitt's turbulent childhood, and how, despite the foster homes, she became a star student – cheerleader, class president and valedictorian - who turned down a scholarship to Yale to join the Navy and earn an IT degree. Her psychological profile – compiled by Navy psychologists – showed a patient, dedicated soldier who have overcome great personal obstacles to be who she was. The perfect goody two shoes. He even knew about her addiction to a certain brand of coffee at the local coffee joint.

There was too much detail to sift through without having a beacon to lead the way through the morass of information. But Tony had just provided that beacon.

"Have we got agents at Saratoga?" Gibbs asked, ignoring the chorus of questions directed his way.

"They're already dispatched," Kate said. "The director sent them as soon as he heard."

"FBI agents are already on the way," Fornell said. "But I think it's still a lead to nowhere."

Gibbs shot Fornell a piercing glare.

"Having too strong a presence could trigger them to act early before we can find them. We gotta stay low," Gibbs said after a brief, uncomfortable silence.

***

When he returned to the room, Gibbs made Hewitt wait as he shuffled the files and calmly studied the necessary reports. Inwardly, he cursed at himself for not noticing it sooner. It was all there for him to see – the hammer to use to crack her open. He had been too focused on the prize, forgetting that sometimes it was necessary to take a detour before you take the road to the goal.

It was a very tiny clue, a blink-and-you-will miss-it clue, a hastily scrawled caption on a grainy photo of two men. One was older, a seasoned soldier, another looked as if he had just enlisted; they beamed and looked as if the future was bright and sunny. The scattered pieces fell into place then. That tiny clue – and the personal knowledge that Hewitt would never have guessed he had – led the way and he knew why and where Hewitt wanted to do her final act of vengeance.

Ten minutes passed in silence and he could see from the corner of his eye that Hewitt was looking at him uncertainly.

"Want some coffee, Lieutenant? We have Traviate, your favourite."

She blinked and quickly pasted on a smug smile. "Sure thing, Gibbs."

"Kate, why don't you bring the lady some coffee?" he called out, giving the mirror behind him a quick glance.

He could almost feel Kate's wrath wafting from behind the mirror.

He let her wait some more as he read the papers one piece at a time, and he could almost feel Hewitt melt with relief when Kate entered with the cup of coffee.

As expected, Kate gave him a glare when she rudely shoved the coffee cup at Hewitt and left.

"You like coffee, Bean? That's what he called you, didn't he? Bean?"

She blinked and something flickered in her eyes. Anger? Fear?

"No. Nobody calls me that."

"My mistake. But your father loved that name. Bean. He gave you coffee even when you weren't exactly supposed to drink coffee then. It was your little secret with dad."

Her lips thinned. "He may have."

"He was a soldier, wasn't he? Secret ops?"

Hewitt merely glared at him.

"Or at least he told you that. I mean, you couldn't take _anything _he said seriously, could you? He did spend the first five years after he came back in a mental institution."

"You don't know anything about my father!" she snapped.

"Sure I do. Private Scott Hewitt. He was left behind in Serbia, but when they found him two months later, he was living in a hole, eating bugs to survive."

"Shut up," she hissed.

"And when he came back, he was a wreck, wasn't he? Couldn't hold down a job. Beat your mum some, and maybe you and your sister too."

"Shut up."

"Then, one day, on your prom night, you put on prom dress and he kissed you goodbye. Probably called you Bean one last time. And when you were gone, he put a bullet between your mother's eyes and then swallowed one himself."

"Shut up!" she screamed, slamming her fist on her table. "You don't know anything about me, or my family!"

"Oh. I know you," he leaned back. "Or at least people like you. You're angry at the wrong person. People like you don't know how to aim at the right bullseye. It's daddy you want to kill, isn't it?"

"Shut up," she hissed.

"Only you can't, really. Because despite the shit of a father you had, he's still your daddy."

"I'm warning you."

"What happened to your father after he put a bullet in his head, Hewitt?"

She didn't answer, just staring at him with hate-filled eyes.

Gibbs met her stare calmly, and without turning away, he slid a picture towards her. Slowly, her gaze shifted to the blurry black and white photo, and the fire in her eyes seem to blaze less brighter. It was a picture of a slack-jawed man in bed, his eyes vacant, his mouth in a permanent grimace.

"Your father spent a couple of years as a vegetable in an institution. Didn't he, Hewitt?"

She blinked, then stared at him with flat, dead eyes.

"Your life went to hell after that," Gibbs flung a few sheets of faded, yellow paper at her. It slapped the table with a surprisingly loud thud.

"A series of foster homes followed after that. Your sister died, age 18, a hooker in Los Angeles. You were at Iowa State then."

She gathered them together, but her well-manicured fingers flitted on the pages as if they burnt. She finally pushed them away in disgust.

"See, you may think you're hard to read, but I'm reading you like a book now. A simple book, like the one written for kids. A is for Apple, B is for Boy," Gibbs said and smiled.

"You're too late, really. Everything's all planned out. Everything's all set." Her eyes were distant, as if she was looking at something deep inside.

"You hated him, didn't you?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"He sent your dad to Afghanistan."

"He said that he'd be okay!" she yelled. Then she shook her head, as if denying what she just said.

"He was a big man. A decorated soldier. Put ideas in your dad's head. Your dad trusted him, didn't he?"

This time, Hewitt's stony facade crumpled. "He lied. He lied." Then her eyes blazed.

"You're going to be too late, Gibbs. Just too late," she smiled. And her eyes just went blank and Gibbs realised that she had retreated inside herself and there was no getting anything out of her now. Luckily, he had everything he needed.

Gibbs left her there smiling blankly at the contents of the file strewn across of the desk.

"What's that about?" Kate asked when he came out.

"Who's 'he'?" McGee asked.

"The person she hated the most. The real target. He's a regular at Saratoga Veterans' Hospital, and he was Hewitt's superior officer, the man who recommended him to the Army."

"Who?" Kate asked, confused. "There was nothing in the files about all that," she said.

"I happen to know him and about his secret visits – that's something she didn't count on," he said, a grin slowly spreading on his face.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13  
**

_Saratoga Veterans' Hospital_

He didn't like titles. But here in Saratoga, he was just Philip Johnson, local boy made good. He would appear in the Veterans' Hospital, decked in a baseball cap and an unassuming T-shirt, and walked the rounds. Sometimes a soldier would recognise him, and he felt nervous when their once-weary eyes became suddenly hopeful, like he could somehow wave their troubles away. He wished he could. A lot of times all that he could do was offer them nice words and a pat on the hand. He felt like a liar of the worst kind – the liar that did this to them.

But he did it anyway. Held their hands, and told them that everything was going to be okay when that wasn't going to happen. No ... the truth was their lives were just starting to get screwed up, and all he could do was offer hollow words of comfort.

He usually lasted an hour before he needed to go to an empty room and sort it all out. All those cascading and conflicting emotions: guilt and duty, happiness and despair, certainty and doubt.... Sometimes, alone in a room full of vacated beds, he think that he had it with his double life of looking all confident about a war he didn't believe in and feeling the guilt of sending these men out into the wilderness, fighting a war that they weren't sure about, eating his heart piece by piece. But somehow he always found that one, tiny spark that will keep him going back to his office in DC.

When he entered an empty room today, he didn't feel that spark.

Especially when he felt the cold kiss of a gun barrel at the side of his neck. So, that is how it was going to end.

"Hello General. Hope you had a nice visit, because it's going to be your last," the voice growled.

He supposed he had it coming ... he couldn't really blame the man or anyone who wanted to pull the trigger. He didn't expect it to end this way though. Johnson closed his eyes ...

... and heard another click.

"It's going to be your last too, if you don't put down your gun," said a new voice.

Johnson opened his eyes ... and when the cold barrel lifted from his neck, he dared to turn ... and saw a man, with dirt liberally smudged on his face and with a wild look in his eyes, turn ever so slightly to meet his eyes. Johnson's would-be-assassin glared at him balefully ... behind him, his saviour had a knife to the man's throat. He wasn't in that good a shape. Blood streaked across his face from a wound at the side of his head, and he looked as if he had just rolled in mud. Probably with the man he had at knife point now. Johnson stared at the trickle of blood from the cut on the assassin's neck.

"General?" asked his rescuer.

He cleared his throat. "I am sorry ... you have me at a disadvantage."

"I'm Thomas Sullivan. Special Agent Thomas Sullivan. And it has been _hell_ trying to get to you in time," said the man in a shaky voice. The man then smiled, relief written all over his dirty and weary features, and Johnson wondered how odd that looked on a man who was about to slice a man's throat with a kitchen knife.

***

In the end, NCIS didn't get to save the man. Fornell's man, Sullivan, did, and Fornell was beaming like a proud daddy as Sullivan briefed him, still in his mud-stained clothes. The FBI agent had left Tony at the scene, determined to get help for the man, but was badly side tracked by the assassin – a militia leader the FBI had their sights on for some time called Red Henry – who did his best to end his life. Unluckily for Red Henry, Sullivan tried as hard to live.

NCIS agents got there just in time to see Sullivan disarm the man. By then, the general was seating, slumped in a corner on the floor as Sullivan cuffed the man.

"How many times did I tell you that your secret, incognito visits are going to give NCIS a headache one day?" Gibbs said to Johnson.

The man looked up, surprised. Then he smiled.

Gibbs and Johnson had crossed paths in Kuwait, and even back then Gibbs heard that he was a tough, uncompromising soldier and commander. But on slow days when they had too much cheap alcohol while huddled in grubby tents, Gibbs could see that something ate at him bad. Johnson wasn't the sharing type, and neither was Gibbs, so they left it at that.

During a lull when no bullets flew about them and they had to hunker down in the desert from the stinging winds, he'd sometimes see Johnson staring down at his tin cup as if it held an oracle to his future. And whatever he saw in that water wasn't good. The closest Johnson came to revealing whatever plagued him was when he saw him smash a hole with his fist into the cheap wall of the makeshift command centre they had set up near Baghdad. That was the day when a number of soldiers had returned in body bags; it was also the day they were told to pull out of Iraq.

"Gibbs. Surprised you didn't get here first," Johnson said wryly.

"Got to let the FBI win some," he grinned as he sat next the man. "Besides. NCIS managed to disarm a couple of guys setting the explosives downstairs in the basement. I suppose we did good."

Johnson's eyes widened. "Bombs. They wanted to bomb a hospital full of wounded soldiers?"

"Afraid so."

"All this effort ... for what?"

Gibbs pursed his lips, and Johnson knew him well enough to know that Gibbs was going to tell him something unpleasant.

"Do you know ... Private Scott Hewitt?"

He took a shuddering breath. "I see. I see," he said sadly. It all made sense now, Johnson thought. "I suppose I had it coming." He shrugged. "I understand."

"You _understand_?" Gibbs asked, confused.

"Scott ... I was young, Gibbs. The army was my life. Scott - he was not a soldier. He was a family man and I took that man from his family. I took that man from his sanity," he explained all this in a tremulous voice, as if confessing a nasty secret. He pursed his lips.

"You don't know that," Gibbs said, his voice hard.

"Oh. I _know _that. He wasn't a soldier. He loved his country, sure. But he had doubts, he kept saying no ... but I kept telling him it was going to be going to be a great adventure. But it wasn't. It was a big disaster. He lasted for five years as a vegetable, Gibbs. Before he just died one day."

He sighed.

"After he shot himself I kept seeing Scott in the young men's eyes. Afghanistan. Baghdad ... everywhere. I keep telling myself it's for a cause but...." he sighed.

"Is that why you come here?" Gibbs gestured absently around them.

Johnson merely shrugged. "I heard that Scott killed himself but not before shooting Sandra. I got it by reading a sheet of smelly newspaper wrapped around a fish. What a way to find out about your best friend, huh?"

Gibbs didn't reply.

"Wanted to take Nora in. But she had that look in her eyes," Johnson shook his head. "She chose foster care over me. But when I heard how well she was doing and that she joined the Navy I thought that maybe ..." he drew another shuddering breath and looked at Gibbs.

"It's Nora, isn't it?" he asked.

Gibbs nodded wearily. "'Fraid so."

"She was a sweet kid, Gibbs. Really she was."

They were silent for a while.

"I'm think I'm done Gibbs," the general smiled at him. "I've created a few Scott Hewitts after him ... I think I better quit before I create another Nora Hewitt."

He took off his baseball cap, stood up and tipped his hat at Gibbs.

"See you on the civilian side, Gunny," he gave him a weary smile and walked away.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

"Wow, that's seriously trippy. It sounds like a Bourne movie. You know, except that Bourne is agent Sullivan and not me. I mean, I would've liked to be Bourne, but being in a coma and all tends to complicate matters a lot. But if Agent Sullivan is Bourne, then who is Gibbs? Maybe I should choose another movie."

Tony took a breath and studied the wobbly bright pink jello in the plastic cup. He winced.

Kate blinked. "Wow. And you said all that in one breath. For a moment, I thought you were channeling Abby," she said, grinning.

He finally graduated from lying flat on his back to sitting up with the help of a bunch of fluffy pillows behind his back. Nurse Marla, however, refused to grant his request to move on from jello to hamburgers by virtue of him being able to sit up on his own. But Tony was pretty sure that he could strong-arm McGee into bringing him a slab of beef somehow. But first, he needed to find a way to circumvent the security system outside – the gaggle of nurses that have their eagle eyes trained at his room at all times.

He groaned at the thought of another day spent sleeping in this room.

"I'm going stir crazy here, Kate! You'd be too if you've been subjected to _The Bold and the Beautiful _for nearly two weeks!" he said. With a loud slurp, he sucked the jello from the plastic cup. He smiled broadly. He had worked hard on perfecting that slurp, and he succeeded after attempt number 7. Not a bad feat.

Kate made a face. "That's actually pretty disgusting."

"You just watch me eating it. Try being me," he said.

Just then, something landed on his lap. He jerked in surprise and brightened when he saw that it was a couple of DVDs. _Godfather II, Jaws, Terminator ... _somebody knew his collection. He frowned ... judging from the familiar marks on the DVDs, they _were _his collection.

"You gotta hide your keys better, Tony."

He looked up and saw Gibbs with a stryofoam cup in his hand. The smell of coffee wafted through the room ... and his stomach growled.

"I want coffee," he muttered.

"Unless you want to risk Nurse Marla's wrath, I would advise you against it, Anthony." Ducky appeared beside Gibbs, a big smile on his face.

McGee and Abby came in then, which surprised him as Nurse Marla was ever so strict with him not being disturbed by too many visitors. He guessed that meant that he graduated in another area. Perhaps he should work on that hamburger request soon.

The next half hour was filled with Abby chatting up a storm, McGee trying his best to interject, Kate making a face each time he made a remark about the nurses, and Gibbs, standing to one side with a rare, small smile on his face.

God, what would he do without this crazy bunch?

But truth to be said, he was exhausted after the visit and was glad that Nurse Marla shooed them all out, including Gibbs. As soon as he was sure everyone's gone, he reached out to the side table and took out something from the drawer.

It was a simple card. The words inside – "Get well soon" – was written in handwriting he didn't think he'd see again. A man had delivered it to him a few hours before everyone besieged him at once. His hair had turned completely grey, but the gentle, kind smile was still there.

"Hello young sir. You're lookin' so much better," he had said in that Irish drawl he loved so much.

"Liam. How many times did I tell you not to call me that?" he asked softly. He sat up with an effort. Liam anxiously rushed to his side and helped him up, fluffing the pillows behind his back with practiced precision.

Tony grabbed the man's arm. "It's nice to see you, Liam."

Liam looked at him in surprise, then smiled as he continued to fluff the pillows and adjust his blankets. It reminded him of when he was young boy; Liam would do this for him when he had a bad cold, and when his father was as usual, too busy to notice that he was out of commission, and when his mother was too busy wining and dining with fellow socialites somewhere in New York City or Europe.

"And you too, young sir. We do not see each other often enough, unfortunately," he said.

When he handed him the card, and when Liam said that it was from his father, he could only smile. Not because of the card – judging from the impersonal message, and by the fact that there was a message in the first place - DiNozzo Sr must have blindly signed it, thinking that it was for some important client. Liam must have gone to some effort to have him sign that.

Liam updated him on the things happening back home, and he was surprised to know that his father had married again.

"Wife number four, young sir, and he says that it will be the last. Had her sign one of those contract things before they married," he said.

Tony snorted. "That's dad. Always prepared."

"Does he know?" he asked.

There was a flash of guilt on his face before he smiled. "Of course he does. He sent his love."

It was charming and sweet how Liam would try to mend that big gulf between the two DiNozzos.

"Tell him ... I said hi," he said softly.

"I will, sir," Liam said seriously, and he knew that Liam would do so.

"Got a card from an admirer, DiNozzo?"

He jerked in surprise and hid the card under his blanket instinctively. Gibbs merely raised an eyebrow. Weird, was it just half an hour ago that Gibbs was here, or was he suffering from one those time lapses the doctors said that he could get.

Tony frowned, puzzled. "How did you escape Nurse Marla?"

Gibbs grinned ever so slightly. "Told her that you went sight seeing."

He snorted and laughed. "I should try that sometime."

There was a brief silence, then Tony said, confused: "Did you forget something, boss?"

Gibbs looked up as if trying to recall something, then smiled. "Yeah. Good job, DiNozzo."

"Uh. For what again?"

"Sending Paula Cassidy as messenger. She didn't screw your message up."

Tony laughed shortly. "Did it help?"

"Oh yeah."

Then another brief uncomfortable silence where Tony fiddled with the card beneath the blankets.

"You didn't come back just for that, did you?" Tony finally asked hopefully.

"Nope. Got a request from an FBI agent."

Now it was his turn to be surprised. "What did I do?"

"It's Agent Sullivan. Wants to talk to you. I think he owes you an apology."

"Oh." He shrugged. "He was just trying to do his best. Though I have to say - that guy is a damn good actor. I really thought he was a schlub. He should try Broadway if the FBI thing doesn't work out."

"He'll come around four today. And Tony?"

Tony looked up in time to see something flying towards him. He grabbed it quickly and grinned when he saw what it was.

"Reflexes still sharp. Guess that the knock on your head didn't rattle anything much in there," Gibbs said.

Tony threw Gibbs a grin.

"You've got 10 minutes before Nurse Marla returns from the rooftop. She's gonna figure out fast enough that you're not there to take in the view," Gibbs muttered on his way out.

He smiled as he unwrapped his hamburger. _Boy, Nurse Marla is gonna have a fit_, he thought.

It was a good day indeed, he thought as he bit into heaven.

* * *

_I want to thank everyone for leaving comments and reading this story. I did notice all the comments asking for updates, and believe me, each one sent a stab of guilt through me. So I worked hard to complete the story, with the little time I have. I travel quite a bit, and was in Australia when I wrote the ending :) _

_On another note, writing this story has made me miss Kate even more. RIP Caitlin Todd._


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